Lower Sixth Economic Conference Trip

 

On June 24, a group of 20 Lower Sixth Economics students attended the City of London School for Girls for their Economic conference which focused on the question of ‘Reducing our Environmental Footprint’, and each student proposed alternative arguments as to how economics could be used to reduce our environmental footprint.

 

The conference featured two key speakers: Kate Raworth, the author of Doughnut Economics – a book studied in the Economics Book Club – and Gemma Tetlow, the Chief Economist for the Institute of Government and correspondent for the Financial Times.

 

Gemma Tetlow explained the aims of the current government while arguing that the costs of mitigating the effects of climate change are more than worth it in comparison to the costs we would incur if changes weren’t made. However, what most stimulated the pupils during the Q&A session which followed were the arguments proposed by Kate Raworth. Raworth expanded on the principles of her book by explaining that the current economic tools available to us are no longer suitable to rectify such damage, going further to explain that the teachings of economics must ‘adapt to being suited to the 21st Century, and no longer a continuation of the 20th’. One of the main areas she identified was that economics in education must change, with the current teaching of a single economic model of a rational person who is purely looking out for their self-interests being no longer suited.

 

The School would like to thank speakers Kate Raworth and Gemma Tetlow for genuinely challenging the students understanding of economics, as well as the City of London School for Girls for their invitation. A thank you must also be extended to Mr Raatz for kindly organising the trip.

 

Discussion of this topic will resume at the School’s Lower Sixth Economics day on July 3.