Good, but not brilliant
In the new book “Financial education. Current practices and future challenges”, published as part of the EUFin project, Kaire Põder, Leonore Riitsalu and Karmo Kroos write about financial literacy in Estonia. They say that despite the students´ high financial literacy score in PISA test and good financial knowledge of adults evidence in the OECD financial literacy survey (2020), the country still faces several challenges.
Firstly, there are important differences in the attainment results among students who attend Estonian and Russian language schools. There are also shortcomings in teacher training. Financial education is taught by teachers whose formal educational background is in other fields and who, at best, are self-taught or benefited from some of the non-formal educational programmes of various kinds.
Secondly, there is a mismatch between high financial literacy achievement test results and the behaviour of the Estonian population when it comes to long-term financial planning and saving. People do know the basic financial concepts but do not use them in their daily lives. The general population in this context has been targeted by various initiatives, not so much by the government but by the banking sector as well as enthusiasts and NGOs.
Last but not least, most of the financial education programmes do not receive regular funding and are therefore not sustainable. Furthermore, there could be better coordination across stakeholders (state, financial sector institutions, NGOs) to reduce overlaps and fill the gaps (e.g. design programmes for specific target groups) for the provision of „just in time“ financial education initiatives.
Therefore, although in international financial literacy surveys Estonians are on higher ranks, it does not mean that their financial literacy is perfect. There is still much to be done by the providers of financial education and people themselves for increasing financial well-being in the country.