A new financial literacy strategy on a way
Text: Liisi Kirch, financial literacy coordinator of the Minstry of Finance of Estonia, Photo credit: Pixabay
The very first financial literacy strategy program in Estonia was launched in 2013 for the years 2013–2020 and is about to end this year. The same way first program’s design and implementation brought together lots of private and public sector partners to share ideas and agree the most important activities to raise the awareness of Estonian people, has the Ministry of Finance collected all the achievements but also problems and concerns this year.
Possibilities for improvement
Although PISA 2018 financial literacy test ranked Estonian students to be the smartest in the world, our partners and the Ministry still see lots of possibilities for improvements. One of the main concerns is the knowledge both students and adults already have tend not to be used in practice, so attitudes must be addressed with different actions in coming years. The motivation and confidence among teachers to talk about money matters class-by-class while teaching different subjects can be higher – to fully understand the reasons behind this problem another survey among school leaders, teachers, students and their parents are going to be taken in 2020 second half.
Last but not least, the concern is seen in significantly lower level of PISA results among Russian speaking students supported by similar results among Russian speaking adults from OECD Survey of Adult Financial Literacy Competencies taken in 2019.
Co-operation with different partners
The compilation process of the new strategy program will be followed by the strategy day event together with before mentioned partners in August 2020. The new version is expected to be available in Q1 2021. The strategy is implemented in co-operation with different partners including public sector organizations like Central Bank, FSA and other ministries, private sector partners like Estonian Banking Association including different credit institutions, investment clubs, the Stock Exchange and NGO-s, not to mention enthusiastic persons like financial literacy and entrepreneurship teachers and successful school leaders, financial bloggers, book authors and trainers.