Kids should learn financial literacy in school over 'parallelograms and rhombuses': author

Many Canadians lack basic knowledge of the economy and personal finance, and a portfolio manager and author says it’s because as children, they weren’t taught to be financially literate in school.

John De Goey, wealth management advisor and author of “Bullshift: How Optimism Bias Threatens Your Finances,” told BNN Bloomberg on Tuesday that parents are partially responsible for the knowledge gap.

“We assume that parents will be teaching it, but a lot of parents don't want to admit that they don't know what they don't know,” De Goey said in a television interview. “As a result, we have a gap.”

De Goey noted that debt levels among adults have increased as finances have become more complex and credit card use has become ubiquitous over the last few generations, but children are usually unaware of the trend.