In some Russian schools, financial literacy lessons are already being held. According to new federal state standards, teaching financial literacy will become compulsory starting from September of the next year.
Yulia Butrina, Candidate of Sciences (Economics), Associate Professor of the Department of Economics and Finance of the School of Economics and Management of South Ural State University spoke on why it has become obligatory and where children can be taught how to manage money.
The level of financial literacy among the population of the Russian Federation is rather low. The debt burden ratio of the population is growing, the number of bankrupt individuals who are debtors to banks is increasing. Many citizens are not aware of the risks associated with various financial products, are not ready to take responsibility for their own financial decisions and possible losses in the financial markets. Only a fraction of the Russians monitor their personal finances, plan their income and expenses, analyse financial services, create long-term savings in case of unforeseen circumstances, recognize signs of financial fraud and, in general, have the skills of competent financial behaviour in relation to personal and family finances.
Today’s children, in the near future, will become the participants of the financial market, entrepreneurs, taxpayers, depositors and borrowers. Useful skills and good habits should be developed since childhood. Therefore, it is advisable to start teaching financial literacy at an early age at the initial stages of educational system.
Economic blocks, including in the course on Social Studies (which students most often choose to take as the Unified State Examination) have long been part of school programmes. However, they include a number of certain economic terms from the field of Macro- and Microeconomics and are not related to application of this knowledge in practice. This conclusion was reached by students of the project group on financial literacy of the SUSU Department of Economics and Finance, who have been analysing the tasks of the economic block of the Unified State Examination in Social Studies for two years now.
At the same time, the number of school pupils who start making financial decisions (such as having pocket money, spending money on mobile phone services, Internet, etc.) at an earlier age is growing rapidly. Some teenagers start to think of organizing their own business, technological entrepreneurship. Basic economic knowledge on the topic could be given at the financial literacy lessons.
That is why, the students of the SUSU School of Economics and Management came up with an idea to design a special resource on financial literacy for school pupils: to create a certain section in the SUSU Children’s Online University, which will be called the School of Financial Literacy. The content for the school is ready and the opening of it will take place in September this year.
Also, the specialists of the School of Economics and Management have developed their own Personal Finance Management simulation game in different versions depending on the level of the players. The first version of the game was successfully presented at the annual student conference in May. In the future, it is planned to obtain copyright for the development and release of the game under the SUSU brand, as well as the development of a computer and mobile version.
We believe that one of the important directions in teaching financial literacy should become financial arithmetic and its application in drawing up a personal plan of income and expenses, calculating interest on deposits and loans, and more.
We know from our own experience that inviting specialists from banks, insurance companies, the Federal Tax Service, broker companies and other organisations brings even more significance to lessons.
School pupils, who have mastered basic knowledge in the field of financial literacy at school, will be able to have a foundation for a faster and deeper study of economic disciplines, prerequisites for the development of entrepreneurial abilities and skills, to generate effective ideas for their own business and competence of reasonable managing their finances during their student life.
Moreover, the school pupils who completed the training can share the acquired knowledge on financial literacy with their relatives and friends of older age.