Teaching financial literacy to become mandatory in primary and secondary schools

Mandatory teaching of financial literacy is embedded in the new federal state educational standards of primary and basic general education, which were developed with the active engagement of the Bank of Russia.

It is planned to form the skills of safe behaviour on the Internet, including when making financial transactions, for children starting from Grade 1. They will also be taught how to analyse family income and expenses and make a personal financial plan. In Grades 5-9, pupils will move on to assessing the risks of entrepreneurship, unfair practices of financial organisations, and various types of financial fraud. Part of the mathematical tasks will be devoted to calculating the prices of goods, the cost of purchases and services, taxes, while geography lessons will help define the quality of human life, family, and financial well-being.

Also, pupils will have to learn how to independently draw up and fill out simple forms and documents — applications, appeals, declarations, powers of attorney, including those in electronic forms.

According to the new educational standards, education in Grades 1 and 5 will begin on 1 September 2022, but the programmes can be changed as early as in 2021 if agreed by parents.

‘The right finance dealing skills should be laid down from childhood, from school’, says Sergey Shvetsov, First Deputy Governor of the Bank of Russia. — ‘Now, thanks to the joint work of the Ministry of Education, the Bank of Russia, and the Ministry of Finance, 86% of Russian schools somehow include financial literacy in their curricula, with every fifth school having this as a mandatory lesson. The introduction of new educational standards will allow all schoolchildren in this country to receive the necessary knowledge about finance for life, to understand how to manage their income, increase their savings, and protect them from financial fraudsters. The next generation will be able to solve financial problems more intelligently thus increasing the level of well-being of their families and the population as a whole.’