Financial literacy is finally on the radar in NZ. The Retirement Commission has announced they have received more than $400,000 from the country’s banks to help fund a trial programme in 10 schools. Pupils would learn how to manage their finances, about hire purchase contracts, interest rates, the ramifications of bad credit ratings, and the importance of financial planning and saving.Not quite sure why the Retirement Commission but hey! It’s a start. Perhaps not unrelated are the problems regarding the high levels of youth leaving school early especially among Maori and Pacific Islanders.
The Retirement Commission’s 2006 report for the OECD is interesting reading. The Economic Survey of NZ 2007 by the OECD goes on to encourage NZ to improve its financial literacy and notes that the NZ government “plans to integrate financial literacy into the NZ curriculum by 2009″ and that further “efforts in this direction should be pursued”.
A 2007 article on the importance of financial literacy to the overall economy by NZ’s Reserve Bank can be found here. Various useful resources and links can be found on the nzliteracyportal.org.nz page.
One guy has written that “today’s society lacks financial literacy and business educators should team up with teachers to do something about it”. The same guy has written an interesting blog on NZ’s internet and its comparison with Finland.
November 23, 2008 at 2:43 am |
Hey Metahound,
With regards to financial literacy in NZ, here is a project that was set up by some friends of mine at the University of Auckland. It’s a volunteer project to teach kids in low-decile schools about the importance of saving, and I think it’s fantastic.
http://savynz.org/index.html