Financial Philosophy Towards Economic Freedom in Teacher Education: A Multidisciplinary Approach

The dearth of financial literacy education in teacher education programs costs teachers a lifetime of indebtedness. Teachers from some South African institutions suffer the most as they try to catch up with the social media lifestyle immediately after finding jobs. Young teachers start to sink into debt because they even leave their villages in order to build content for social media. This qualitative study adopted a purposive sampling of 20 participants from Mankweng village with an aim to explore the negative effects of the lack of financial literacy in teacher education programs in some South African universities. Semi-structured interviews via WhatsApp were conducted after acquiring the informed consent of those 20 participants. The analytic theory was used as the lens to thematically analyse the indebted life of teachers who fall victim to this problem. Major findings are that; teachers sink into debt due to a lack of financial literacy during their training, and they have no knowledge of debt assistance agencies like DebtBusters and many more. The pivotal recommendation among others is that teachers’ education programs in South African universities must include financial literacy as the importance of this study is to spread awareness about the dangers of lacking financial literacy for lower- and middle-class income citizens. This study contributes to scholarship because it strives for inclusion of financial literacy in teachers training program which is lacking in South African teachers training in higher education. Keywords: Indebtedness, Financial Literacy, Social Media, Mental Health, Decision-Making