In a country that has always underestimated the importance and potential of financial education and in a world increasingly dominated by the vicissitudes of the markets and by everyday life centered on microeconomics and personal finance, developing skills in these fields from an early age it can become fundamental for the present and for the future of every single person. In this context, theItaly, despite some encouraging improvements, still has a long way to go before it can achieve sufficient financial literacy to face everyday difficulties. Difficulties that do not only have to do with complex tools and reckless operations, but which, on closer inspection, involve actions and situations that each of us experiences very often: from buying telephone credit for your smartphone to how to spend pocket money up to managing a current account.
To deal with this very important issue is the OECD which, as part of the second edition of Pisa, the international student assessment programme, analyzed the knowledge acquired by Italian 2015-year-olds in XNUMX, trying to understand whether or not they possess the financial skills necessary for the transition from compulsory school to higher education, to the world of work or of entrepreneurship, that is when they will have to face more complex financial choices.
Well, according to the results of the survey, some improvements have been made over the years, but nevertheless at the age taken into consideration by the study (15 years, we repeat), Italians do not yet have sufficient skills on finance, banking products, invoices, etc. On the basis of the answers given by the students of our country, they obtained a score just below the sufficiency: 483 points against an average of 489 collected by the other nations analysed, a result that places us in ninth place in the standings behind the United States and Poland and ahead of Spain and Lithuania. At the top of the ranking we find Chinese students, with 566 points, followed by Belgians (546) and Canadians (533).
(Source: Ocose)
Before providing further details, however, it is necessary to specify what is meant by financial skills: according to the definition provided by the institution itself, they represent "the knowledge and understanding of financial concepts and risks combined with the skills, motivation and self-confidence to use this knowledge and understanding in order to make effective decisions in a whole of financial contexts, to improve the financial well-being of individuals and society and to allow participation in economic life".
Based on data recorded by Paris, “around 20% of students in Italy (compared to 22% on average across participating OECD countries and economies) fail to achieve the benchmark for financial literacy (Level 2)”. A level that allows XNUMX-year-olds to identify the simplest financial terms and products, such as invoices, for example, but nothing more.
Only 6 out of 12 Italian XNUMX-year-olds, half of the OECD average of XNUMX%, manage to reach the highest level of financial knowledge, the fifth, being therefore "able to analyze complex financial products, solve non-typical financial problems and demonstrate understanding of the broader financial landscape”.
Despite what many think, it is not the students' socio-economic background that affects results given that, on the contrary, the relationship between it and the financial skills results achieved by students is "significantly weaker than the OECD area average ”. Only 5% of the variation in achievement is associated with socioeconomic status (compared to an average of 10% across OECD countries and economies).
Continuing with the reading of the Pisa 2015 survey, however, we discover another interesting fact: 35% of Italian fifteen-year-olds have a current account and precisely these students obtain results 23 points higher in financial literacy than students of similar socio-economic status who do not have a current account, a sign that those who start from an early age to have some contact with the first financial notions manage to reach a higher level of skills. Not only that, "students in Italy who obtain results equal to Level 4 or higher in financial literacy - they explain from Paris - are more likely than students who obtain very low results to want to undertake a university education, after also taking into account the characteristics of students and their results in mathematics and reading tests”.
It is also interesting to find out what they are the first approaches to the economy and finance for Italian teenagers: in our country 83% of students receive money from friends or relatives, 35 receive pocket money, 21% earn money by carrying out occasional informal jobs, such as baby-sitting or gardening, and 16% work outside the school hours. Furthermore, 82% of our fifteen-year-olds discuss "money-related matters, such as spending and savings, with their parents at least once a month".
Despite the still slightly insufficient financial skills, however, Italian students also get some good results, especially when it comes to savings: 59% of Italian respondents said they were ready to save up to buy something they didn't have enough money for. While 43% “reported saving every week or every month, 21% save only when they have money to put aside and 27% save only when they want to buy something. Few (5%) those who declare that they do not save at all”.
The conclusions reached by the OECD on the basis of the survey conducted on the fifteen participating countries and economies, including 10 countries and economies of the OECD area, are clear: despite the fact that between 2012, the year in which the first study was carried out, and 2015, Italy has improved its average results, in terms of financial literacy we are still slightly below the average of the 10 OECD countries and economies that took part in the analysis.
The PISA 2015 financial literacy survey concludes with some suggestions policies for all countries and economies that took part in the survey, including:
- Address the needs of students who have achieved very low results
- Address socio-economic inequalities from the outset
- Provide equal learning opportunities for boys and girls
- To help students get the most out of the learning opportunities offered in the school environment
- Reach out to parents as well as young people
- To provide young people with safe opportunities to learn through direct experience outside the school environment
- Evaluate the impact of initiatives inside and outside the school environment.
