Why Tom Elliott thinks Victoria’s school banking ban is ‘short-sighted’

The Victorian government has announced plans to ban bank-run financial programs in schools.

But Tom Elliott says it’s a “short-sighted” plan.

Press PLAY below for Tom’s editorial.

“Banks aren’t purer than the driven snow, we know that, but it’s impossible to function in a modern society without a bank account,” the 3AW Drive host said.

“If all these programs do is go into kids and say ‘Look, here’s how you open a bank account, here’s how it works, here’s what interest means’ … this is valuable knowledge for children to learn.

“Banks are a necessarily evil in our society. Kids have to learn how to handle money. Handling money means you must have a bank account.

“Maybe there should be more supervision, maybe the government should overlook the programs, but just to ban them altogether means kids will emerge from primary school, possible get into state secondary school and possibly have no idea how bank accounts work!”