Knowing how to calculate compound interest could be the difference between retiring at 45 and working into your old age. The UK department of education this week introduced a new form of maths that will teach pupils about real-life situations.The course started with pupils learning how to work out interest and currency rates.Though mathematical literacy was designed to equip pupils with "real-life" maths, economist Dawie Roodt said not enough young South Africans had those skills."We are meant to give children tools to help them, but we are instead fixated on qualifications that give them little skills."Roodt said there was a great need for financial literacy in South Africa, and that many people only acquired the knowledge through "trial and error".University of the Free State rector Jonathan Jansen said lives were being wrecked because people often finished school or graduated from university with no idea on "how budgets work, or the difference between savings and investments, or why it is better to buy a house before a flashy car"...