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Comment by keegancsmith | Hacker News Reader

Also surprised by all these articles. But your point made me realise that most people didn't do accounting in high school like I did (also a South African). I wonder what some other uncommon high school curriculums from other parts of the world are.

In retrospect I wish what we learnt in High School was more focussed on personal finance than essentially constantly doing double entry data capture.

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I suspect accounting is a topic common in commonwealth countries curriculum (heh no pun intended) - Australia included it as well.

But the UK doesn't! That probably tells you something about the UKs relationship with the commonwealth.

It's not compulsory, but it's available at GCSE and A Level; also in General Knowledge A Level I think.

Granted they have a bit of a reputation for being 'lesser' subjects. I don't really agree that everyone needs to be taught this though, most Britons don't have to 'do taxes', and aren't running companies. It should probably form a part of trades' apprenticeship training (and for all I know it does) due to the higher prevalence of self-employment (and thus running a business, and self-assessing tax even if not incorporated).

chicken and egg

India here (also commonwealth). Accounting wasn’t in high school curriculum but tax calculation was.

No accounting in the French general high school curriculum. And I can’t see it being introduced (it would be seen as an unacceptable intrusion of capitalism in education).

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