Financial Education for Educators

Financial literacy is becoming increasingly important skill, if not a core skill, to navigate the complex world of personal finance and access go financial services to improve financial wellbeing in a challenging financial environment. Financially-literate people budget, save, control spending better; handle mortgage, participate in financial markets, moving from basic financial skills to a more complex wealth management know how. Today, financial literacy is especially low among adults in Europe, despite efforts over recent years to improve the financial literacy of citizens with most European countries having developed national strategies for financial literacy. The OECD/INFE report Financial Trends in Europe, 2016), reported: • A quarter of adults had problems with calculating the simple interest on savings • The vast majority could not calculate the interest on savings after 5 years • There were issues with identifying risk and return • Over 30% could did not understand the concept of diversification If adults are to navigate the increasingly complex and digitalised world of finance they will require the competences for day to day financial transactions to obtain better value for their money, better protect themselves from financial fraud, and help secure their financial future. Educators also have a role to play in helping citizens develop financial competence. However, if educators are to help citizens do so, they must also have competence in finance. Yet, this area has received little attention in terms of policy, resources or concrete action. It is against this background that the Financial Education for Educators project was developed, to build capacity in organisations providing financial education by empowering the organisations and their staff to deliver high quality training in financial and economic literacy. The main objectives were to: 1.. Provide a comparative analysis of the preparation of financial educators in Europe, North America and Australia to inform the future training and preparation of financial educators 2. Formulate a financial and economic competence framework for educators 3. Improve the financial and economic competences of at least 14 adult educators to deliver financial education to adults 4. Provide opportunities for adult educators to improve and update their competence to deliver financial training though an e-course in financial and economic literacy. 5. Create a course that could confer “certified financial educator” status on successful completion. The project begins to address the issue of the preparation of financial educators by developing strategies, and tools and training programmes to help educators develop financial and economic competence so they can facilitate the development of adults’ financial competence. Very importantly too, as the world of finance becomes more digital, financial educators will also need to develop and update both their financial and digital competencies, so there will need to access continuing professional development opportunities. The main project activities were developing a number of intellectual outputs and and point staff training to pilot the course and materials developed by the partnership. The intellectual outputs were 1. Country Reports- Analyses of financial education in each partner country, compared with Australia and USA. 2. A Financial Competence Framework for Adult Educators. 3. A Course in Finance for Adult Financial educators 4. Teaching and Learning Resources 5. Online Course in Finance for Adult Educators The participants were adult educators from the partner organisations and local stakeholders in adult education and finance. They participated in the staff training, multiplier events and peer reviewed the outputs. The staff training took place virtually due o the the Covid-19 Pandemic with 30 participants instead of the originally planned face-to-face training fo 14 participants.Stakeholder in the project welcomed this is initiative as the only one they were aware of that made a concerted effort to improve the knowledge and skills o f educators in finance. They also recognised the importance of financial literacy in the modern and financially interconnected world. They welcomed the resources especially the financial competence framework and online course as tools they can use for personal was well s professional development. The need to improve the financial literacy is universal and will continue to have international relevance. Being carried out transnationally will provide different perspectives to the issues and opportunities to share experiences, learn from each other, generate solutions capable of replication internationally, and foster future partnership working and on issues of common European interest.