Commission publishes joint EU/OECD Financial Competence framework for children and youth (Financial literacy)
EU/OECD Financial Competence framework for children
The European Commission has today published a joint EU/OECD financial competence framework for children and youth. The framework is designed to help improve young people's financial literacy so that they are prepared to take well-informed personal finance decisions today and more importantly – later on in life.
The objective of the framework is to establish a shared understanding among Member States and practitioners of the essential financial literacy skills that children and youth need. On that basis, the framework can support the development of financial literacy policies, programmes and teaching material by public, private and not-for-profit stakeholders.
The Commission and OECD will now focus on encouraging and supporting the uptake of the framework by national authorities, practitioners and other stakeholders. The effectiveness of the framework hinges on establishing a shared understanding of financial literacy among diverse stakeholders across the Member States and their willingness to both use the framework and actively contribute to enhancing the impact of financial literacy policies and initiatives.
A launch event for the framework will be held on 2 October 2023 in Brussels. More information about the event is here.
Background
The European Commission and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development/International Network on Financial Education (OECD/INFE) developed this framework in the context of the 2020 Capital Markets Union Action Plan (Action 7: “Empowering citizens through financial literacy”), and as part of the OECD/INFE programme of work. This framework follows on from the earlier publication of a similar framework for adults in January 2022.
The need to improve levels of financial literacy in the EU is as relevant as ever, as demonstrated by the recent 2023 Eurobarometer survey on financial literacy. That study confirmed that the overall levels of financial literacy in the EU remain alarmingly low. It also showed that in general young people tend to have lower financial knowledge and have less prudent financial behaviour than older people. According to the October 2022 Flash Eurobarometer survey on retail financial products, young people are also less confident than older generations when managing their personal finances. At the same time, young people are more attracted to riskier financial instruments, such as crypto-assets. They also have more trust in social media as a source of information and feel more secure in making financial transactions via web or apps. This would suggest that initiatives targeting young people with the aim of raising financial literacy levels could be particularly impactful.
Like the adult framework, the framework for children and youth is accompanied by an excel tool that facilitates navigation and filtering of competences according to users' needs.
For more information
Financial competence framework for children and youth
