Is It True That "Schools Don't Teach Money"? Looking Into Japan's Financial Education, Grade by Grade

Introduction

Starting this week, I'm beginning a new series on financial education. Have you ever felt like you wished school had taught you about taxes, insurance, or how debt works? I looked into Japan's financial education across elementary, junior high, and high school to sort out what's actually taught, and why it doesn't seem to stick in memory.

I barely remember ever having a class about money

I still clearly remember how surprised I was by how small my first paycheck was when I became a working adult.

Even during part-time jobs as a student, something called "gensen choushuu" (withholding tax) was being deducted from my pay. (Looking back, the name itself literally explains what it is, but at the time I had no idea, lol.)

Even so, back then I thought pretty vaguely, "well, once I'm a working adult, I'll surely be bringing in a lot of money."

But when I actually looked at my first pay statement as an employee, I was genuinely shocked: "wait, this much is being deducted?" "What exactly is a paycheck again...?"

I imagine most new working adults have felt a similar shock at least once.

At the time, I assumed Japanese schools basically never taught anything about money. But once I actually looked into it, my understanding turned out to be a bit off.

Japan doesn't have an independent, mandatory subject called "financial literacy" or "financial education."

However, content related to money is in fact formally built into the official curriculum guidelines — from home economics in elementary school, to technology and home economics in junior high, to home economics and civics in high school.

In other words, it's not that financial education doesn't exist in Japan at all.

The issue is that it's split across several different subjects, which makes it hard to see as one unified "money and life" class.

Why isn't such important content, so directly tied to everyday life, treated as its own coherent subject? That's something I really can't help but question.

What I actually needed once I became a working adult was knowledge directly tied to daily life — gross versus take-home pay, taxes, social insurance, pensions, and so on.

But I had a fairly hard time learning all of that, whether by researching it myself from scratch or asking someone in payroll to explain it to me.

In elementary school, kids learn about shopping and how to use money

In the home economics curriculum for 5th and 6th graders, students learn about "how to use goods and money, and shopping."

The main content includes:

• Valuing goods and money

• Using money with a plan

• How shopping works

• The role of the consumer

• Gathering information to choose products

• The basics of sales contracts

The commentary on the official curriculum guidelines from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) indicates that students should understand how shopping works and the role of the consumer, gather and organize the information needed to make a purchase, and be introduced to the basics of sales contracts.

What's covered in elementary school isn't so much investing or taxes as it is the fundamentals of everyday life — "how do you use a limited amount of money?" and "what should you check when shopping?"

It's closer to a lesson on how to use your allowance.

It's important content, but it isn't yet the stage where students learn about future salaries, taxes, or social insurance.

In junior high, it expands to contracts and payment methods

In junior high technology and home economics classes, students learn about "managing and spending money."

Specifically, this includes:

• Characteristics of different purchasing and payment methods

• Planned money management

• How sales contracts work

• The background behind consumer harm/fraud, and how to respond

• Gathering information to choose products and services

• Consumer rights and responsibilities

This is presented not as content for a select few students, but as something essentially all students learn.

By junior high, students move a step beyond the shopping covered in elementary school, into contracts, payment methods, and consumer harm — content with a stronger connection to life in society.

That said, the content is still split across subjects: shopping and contracts in home economics, and the mechanisms of the economy and finance in social studies.

From a student's perspective, these likely look like separate, unrelated classes, which may make it hard to feel like you've received a coherent financial education.

What I remember most clearly from my own junior high years is just my teacher repeatedly warning us, "be careful with credit cards."

In high school, students learn about asset building and borrowing

In high school, the content expands further into things closer to real adult life.

Under the new high school curriculum guidelines implemented from April 2022, the content on financial and economic education was apparently expanded. It's about time, honestly...

The high-school-oriented teaching materials created by the Financial Services Agency cover the following:

• Household budgeting and life planning

• Spending money on goods and services

• Social insurance and private insurance

• Savings and asset building

• Financial products such as stocks, bonds, and investment trusts

• Borrowing, such as credit and loans

• Financial troubles/scams

The materials are structured around the flow of "managing your household finances," "spending," "preparing," "saving and growing," "borrowing," and "financial troubles."

Some of you may have heard that "high schools now teach investing."

However, the purpose of these classes isn't to recommend any specific financial product or push students toward starting to invest.

Deposits, insurance, stocks, bonds, and investment trusts each carry their own distinct characteristics and risks.

The goal is to learn the basics needed to understand those differences and make judgments suited to your own life and household finances.

Looking at all of this, it's clear that schools teach a broader range of content than I'd assumed. Though I'll admit I don't know the fine details of how each class is actually taught...

If it's being taught, why doesn't it stick in memory?

In 2023, a survey called the "Survey on Financial and Life Knowledge and Behavior of 15-Year-Olds" was conducted among 3,000 first-year high school students nationwide.

Asked whether they had learned about money in junior high school classes, the results were:

• "I learned about it": 50.0%

• "I think I learned about it, but I don't really remember": 41.0%

• "I don't think I ever learned about it": 4.6%

• "I don't know": 4.5%

There wasn't any financial education back in my day either, and yet there are still this many kids struggling with it...

Combining "I learned about it" and "I think I learned about it," roughly 90% of students have been exposed to something about money in some form.

Even so, only about half of students clearly recognize that they "learned" it.

Why does it fail to stick in memory so much?

One possible reason is how scattered financial education is.

Shopping is covered in home economics. Banking and the economy are covered in social studies. Further education and career paths fall under career education. Asset building is covered in high school home economics.

Because the subject matter is split across so many different places like this, I suspect it becomes hard to understand salaries, taxes, insurance, debt, and asset building as one connected flow.

This isn't a cause that's been directly proven by any survey — it's my own personal speculation.

Still, it feels close to the reason I myself felt like I had no memory of ever being taught about money.

I think these topics shouldn't be left as separate, disconnected pieces of knowledge, but should instead be taught together, connected, within a single class on "money and life" or "financial literacy."

Some schools supplement this with special classes

Beyond regular subjects, some schools bring in outside instructors for special or visiting classes.

J-FLEC (the Japan Financial Literacy and Education Corporation) dispatches financial and economic experts to schools free of charge.

For elementary school students, this covers things like how to use and save an allowance.

For junior high and high school students, it covers budget management, asset building, insurance, credit, financial troubles, and more. Teaching materials usable in regular classes, along with lesson plans that include worksheets, are also provided.

However, these visiting classes aren't automatically held at every school.

They work through a system where the school or teacher applies for the program, using it to supplement regular classes.

Because of that, how often it's held and how in-depth the classes are may vary quite a bit from school to school.

I also spent some of my days off digging through public documents, but I wasn't able to find any recent nationwide statistics, broken down by school type, on "what percentage of elementary, junior high, and high schools nationwide provide financial education outside of regular classes."

I'd like to look further into just how much variation there is between schools in terms of financial education opportunities, if I get the chance in the future.

Conclusion: Financial education exists. It just hasn't become a single, unified class

Japanese schools teach the following content, stage by stage:

• Elementary school: shopping and using money with a plan

• Junior high: money management, contracts, payment methods, consumer harm

• High school: household budgeting, insurance, borrowing, financial products, asset building

Before I looked into this, I assumed Japan barely had any financial education at all.

But in reality, there's a system in place that teaches it step by step, from elementary school through high school.

The real problem is that it's spread across multiple subjects, rather than existing as a single subject called "financial literacy."

It's not that schools aren't teaching it. They are — it's just hard for it to reach students as one connected body of knowledge tied to their own daily lives. That's what I came away feeling about financial education in Japan.

Being exposed to something just once in class doesn't always mean it sticks as knowledge you can actually use once you're a working adult.

Just as I was shocked when I saw my first paycheck, I imagine plenty of people only realize they actually need this knowledge once their own money starts moving in the real world.

But if you wait until you truly need it before researching everything from scratch, that can sometimes be a bit too late.

Do you remember the classes about money you had in school?

Shopping, contracts, taxes, insurance, debt, investing.

Looking back at how much you were actually taught might change how you see Japan's financial education.

Thank you for reading all the way to the end.

Next time, I'll compare financial education in Japan with that of the UK and Australia, and share what children abroad are actually being taught.