Financial Literacy and its Benefits for Students
In today’s complex financial landscape, equipping students with financial literacy skills is crucial to their future success.
At Hasti School, we recognize the importance of empowering our students with the knowledge and skills to make informed financial decisions*. Our financial literacy program aims to educate students on various aspects of personal finance, including budgeting, saving, investing, and responsible spending. We have plans to develop these skills, and we will strive to prepare our students for financial independence and a secure future.
Financial literacy is an important life skill for everyone and it is something we should teach from a young age. As a teacher, you are well-placed to help children learn essential, lifelong money skills, from budgeting and saving to understanding interest rates and avoiding debt. In this article, we will look at what financial literacy is, why it is important to teach financial literacy to students as part of the curriculum and provide some strategies and tips for teaching financial literacy in the classroom. Let’s analyse and investigate this topic
What is financial literacy for students?
Financial literacy for students means having the knowledge and skills to make informed financial decisions. This involves children understanding important financial concepts and principles so that they can manage their money well for the rest of their lives.
Financial education in schools gives children and young people the power to make the most of their money and plan for their future.
In primary schools, financial literacy includes the following topics; how money is used, making simple calculations with money, calculating change, budgeting, saving money, planning ahead, keeping money safe, comparing costs and understanding the use of bank cards.
In secondary schools, financial literacy is more about the functions and uses of money, including topics such as; credit and debit, insurance, pensions, savings, loans, interest rates, personal finance products, currencies and exchange rates, the value of money, managing a household budget and more complex calculations. Financial literacy is important for students because it supports lifelong well-being and success.
The benefits of students learning financial literacy in schools include:
- The ability to open a bank account. • Encouragement to spend responsibly and make informed choices. • The ability to save for the future.
- An understanding of how to avoid and manage debt.
- Recognition of the importance of having a pension.
- The confidence to manage income from salaried work. • An understanding of how tax works.
- Reducing stress levels through improved financial stability. • Knowledge to avoid financial exploitation, fraud or abuse.
How to teach financial literacy
Whether you are teaching financial literacy to secondary school students or pre-schoolers, financial literacy topics can easily be incorporated into personal development or citizenship lessons, such as Personal Social Health and Economic Development (PSHE). They can also be used to bring other areas of the curriculum into the real world for your students. For example, using maths lessons to calculate change or calculate interest rates makes the topic more relevant to real life.
Start teaching financial literacy from an early age – even young children such as pre-schoolers will benefit from financial education and evidence shows that children’s attitudes to money are well developed by the age of 7.
- Apply the lessons to real life – financial education will be more effective if the lessons learned are put into practice. For example, use workshops to help children open a bank account or give them homework about budget management for the weekend.
- Involve adults in financial education – Lessons will be more successful when parents and caregivers are invited to be involved, whether it’s with meetings and workshops at school or doing homework with their children at home. Parental involvement helps influence a child’s mindset and behavior about money.
Below are some fun financial literacy activity ideas you can adopt for your students, whatever their age*:
- Create a pocket money savings plan for something they really want to buy. There are many templates available online or you can design your own. •
Give each child an imaginary amount of money to shop for food, then ask them to figure out what they could buy from the list of groceries, as well as how much money they will have at the end.
- Print out money bingo cards from the internet and play as a class. •
Create a mock bank statement and ask students to identify key information from it, such as adding up the total of expenditure in a particular category, finding direct debits or identifying fraudulent transactions.
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