Financial Literacy Training in Adult Education

Main objective of the project: Innovation The project idea grew up combining two main considerations:1) Several studies show that a person’xxs skills to understand, use basic financial and economic concepts plays an important role in achieving an appropriate level of economicwellbeing. Adequate skills enable citizens to take advantage from opportunities offered by financial systems and take into account also risks in a proper manner. The level of financialknowledge is not uniform throughout the countries of this partnership. Indeed, the overall level of financial literacy is quite low. Many adults struggle, in particular, with the knowledge ofbasic economic concepts and they are less likely to put good behaviours into practice, like for example, drawing up a family budget. Financial literacy is particularly low among the leasteducated people and those coming from disadvantaged background. Elder people and women seem to have also difficulties in deciding independently and/or consciously in financialmatters or even in simple family, household issues.2) Education is one of the most important factors in ensuring adequate levels of understanding financial concepts and Financial literacy education is clearly a need for adult learners.Many research suggest great need for it and studies have been conducted about various aspects of financial education for adults. Most often, however, these studies focus on those ofricher population group rather than on low-income populations. Further, they tend to focus on what information is provided, with little or no attention to the teaching strategies andmethodologies or the pedagogy used.Teachers and educators in adult institutes, and more generally, general schools play a very important role in planning and implementaing actions to foster, support the developmentand strengthening of key competences in Financial Literacy in a lifelong learning perspective. Regardless of how well financial education programs are designed, success is largelydependent onthe quality of instruction that the adult learners actually receive.Unfortunately, teachers and educators in adult schools often feel unprepared to competently deliver financial literacy lessons, prepare materials even though they also believe howimportant it is for their learners (and also for themselves). Many reported that they felt in some cases unprepared to teach some more technical topics, for example risk management orbanking. In the partner countries, there are some guidelines for adult schools giving autonomy in implementing Financial literacy with lesson plan and examples. However, theguidelines do not mention explicitly learning and training resources from which teachers can improve their skills both of the technical subjects or the teaching methodology.