Financial education becomes core teaching from 2027. The evidence suggests students learn most when the money feels real, through market days, classroom economies and student-run companies.
Ask a Year 9 student what interest is and you might get a textbook answer. Give them a stall, a float and a lunchtime, and they’ll learn about pricing, margins and leftover stock on the spot.
That kind of learning is about to become core. In April 2025 the Government announced that financial education would be a core element of the social sciences learning area for Years 1 to 10, with financial maths in the new maths and statistics curriculum.
Younger students cover needs and wants, bank accounts, earning, spending and saving. Older students move on to budgeting, interest, investment, tax and insurance.
“We know that New Zealand parents have long called for financial education to be a priority,” Education Minister Erica Stanford said. The updated social sciences curriculum begins to be used from the start of 2027, and schools have two years to fully implement it.
The starting point is low. “Only about 20 per cent of young people receive some form of financial education,” Yasmin Frazer, learning lead at Sorted in Schools, told AUT’s Te Waha Nui in March.
What the evidence says
Teaching facts isn’t enough on its own. A 2020 meta-analysis by economists Carmela Kaiser and Lukas Menkhoff, covering 37 experimental studies of school financial education, found programmes improved students’ knowledge more than their behaviour.
More intensive programmes did better, though with diminishing returns. For schools, that argues for regular, applied practice over a one-off workshop.
Ways schools are making it real
Market days are the simplest place to start. At Macleans College in Auckland, three Year 9 classes formed 26 business teams last year and sold baking and drinks over one lunchtime.
They planned products, costed them and dealt with whatever didn’t sell. “I learnt that the market can be intense, but not selling out is not the end of the world,” one student said.
Some schools add a twist by taxing stall profits for a school fund, which brings in a concept most adults find abstract.
Classroom economies work well at primary level. Banqer, a classroom banking platform funded by Kiwibank and free for primary and intermediate schools, has students earn a “salary”, pay rent and tax, and save. Kiwibank said it was used in about a third of primary schools in 2022.
Workshops can slot into the timetable. ASB’s GetWise programme runs free sessions for Years 3 to 8, including a module on scams for Years 7 and 8.
Money can also run across the whole curriculum. Sorted in Schools, run by Te Ara Ahunga Ora Retirement Commission, embeds financial lessons in English, maths, technology and other subjects, so money comes up in context rather than as a stand-alone unit.
In 2023 it was used in 78% of secondary schools and 81% of kura, and te reo Māori achievement standards in financial education were launched the same year.
For seniors, there’s the real thing. The Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme has secondary students set up and run actual companies for NCEA credits, from raising capital to making a product, selling it and reporting on it.
Making it work
Several of these programmes are free, and the Ministry and the Retirement Commission are mapping providers against the new curriculum, which should make choosing easier.
Match the format to the age group. A classroom economy suits primary, a market day suits intermediate and junior secondary, and a real company suits seniors. Either way, make sure money changes hands, even if it’s pretend.
Frazer’s other tip is to bring parents in. Many adults never got this education themselves, and students who talk about money at home are more likely to use what they learn.
