“The growing complexity of the economic and financial systems that characterizes the current and future context makes it even more essential today to possess basic financial skills that facilitate the orientation, protection and allocation of savings. The importance offinancial literacy is now widely recognized internationally”. With these words Magda White, head of the Customer Protection and Financial Education Department of Bankitalia, began his speech in the hearing of the Senate Culture Committee regarding the bills for financial education at school.
"The possession of useful skills at the individual level to make economic choices in a responsible and conscious manner increases economic and financial well-being and resilience to difficulties - he added - is a condition forinclusion financial, but also for the economic and social one more generally. The available analyzes also highlight effects on country systems, in particular on the reduction of inequalities and poverty, on the possibility of facilitating a more efficient allocation of savings, on the productivity of small businesses, with repercussions on aggregate growth”.
For the young possessing economic and financial skills is essential right away, because they often already make financial choices. And this, underlines the head of the Customer Protection and Financial Education Department, is worth much more today than in the past. “Because life expectancy has increased and with less generous pension systems young people will find themselves having a greater responsibility in forming savings for old age. Because a fragmented working life awaits them. Because the growing digitization of finance confronts all of us with complicated choices but also with greater opportunities".
Greater financial expertise is not a substitute for action by the authorities
Not only. “Greater financial skills also help markets function properly, fostering the best players and innovation, contributing to financial stability. Inappropriate decisions by people can affect individual well-being but also fuel vulnerabilities in financial and economic systems". But for Bianco it does not mean that greater financial expertise replaces consumer protection action by the authorities. "There Bank of Italy it is also engaged on this front, with supervision of the transparency and fairness of intermediaries, on the one hand, and individual protection tools (in particular, management of customer complaints and the Financial Banking Arbitrator) on the other”.
Financial education, Italy still black jersey in Europe
“But investigations show us that the Italian have financial skills low in international comparison. This is why it is urgent to promote financial education from an early age; we therefore positively evaluate the introduction of financial education at school. The delays partly reflect cultural factors: the economy and finance are topics that are generally rarely addressed in the family (even less in families from more disadvantaged socio-economic and cultural contexts); when economic and financial issues are addressed in the family, dialogue on these topics is often preferred with the sons”. And even if there have been some improvements in recent years, much more needs to be done and we need to start from the school. “School reaches everyone, regardless of socio-economic backgrounds and gender”.
Financial education in schools: the experience of the Bank of Italy
“The Bank of Italy has played a pioneering role in introducing financial education in schools: in 2007 it was among the first institutions to sign a protocol with the Ministry of Education and Merit; he has been proposing the project ever since Financial education in schools, as a training body accredited by the same Ministry,” recalled Bianco. “In addition to this project, the Bank of Italy uses other tools to involve schools on economic-financial issues in a synergistic way with respect to the school project. These tools allow a first contact with students, providing them with food for thought, increasing their curiosity about individual topics, allowing them to deepen some economic-financial topics; we then leave the task of providing a more organic and structured picture of the topics addressed, for example in competitions or in educational workshops, to the School Project". Such as competitions in economics and finance, awareness campaigns, student guidance and Pathways for transversal skills and initiatives for the training of future teachers.
The role of the school: "Teaching finance in civic education"
“The Bank of Italy's experience confirms the importance of promoting financial education, above all in schools. We have already expressed ourselves on previous bills dealing with the matter. All the bills under discussion today have the merit of proposing financial education as a cross-curricular subject; in addition, the DDLs that propose its introduction as an additional and independent teaching underline the importance of having a specific focus on this knowledge. However, we believe that, in the current context, the explicit inclusion of economic and financial skills in the field of civic education offers some advantages compared to the introduction of a new teaching in its own right”.
