According to the latest OECD PISA and PIAAC reports there are still too many young people around the world who lack an adequate level of proficiency in financial topics, with likely negative consequences for their future. Economic and Financial Literacy (FL) is basic knowledge possibly to be acquired early in life to make individual financial decisions better informed and more effective. FL encourages prudence in money management, saving and investment, or borrowing and debt management, thus preventing (possibly irreversible) mistakes. It also provides the basic principles for crucial passages in the life cycle, such as the transition from education to work as well as a more effective individual participation in increasingly dynamic and technologically dominated labor markets.
The main objective of the ANGLE project is to promote and enhance younger generations’ FL. ANGLE will adopt a life-cycle perspective. This perspective is essential to help the young to consider a long-time horizon and to think about the future consequences of their decisions. The (inevitably stylized) life-cycle model includes four crucial decision points: to continue the education career or to work; to save and how to invest (conversely, to take up a debt); to buy or to rent a house; to continue work or to retire.
Moreover, the project focuses on ways in which knowledge can be acquired by using innovative technologies of education, such as games and on-line tools that allow learning through active involvement and participation. The main target group is represented by university students in the first years of higher education, differentiated by gender and socio-economic characteristics. ANGLE will put a strong emphasis in co-creating and co-constructing the project outputs with the students to use an approach consistent with their language and to best include needs, aspirations, and viewpoints of the youths. This approach (which will have a specific focus on gender differences) is aimed at promoting financial and social inclusion: it aims at reaching also young who have fewer opportunities, disadvantaged backgrounds and are usually excluded by similar activities.
This project is carried out as a collaboration between ETLA Economic Research, CeRP – Collegio Carlo Alberto, National Institute for Family Finance Information (Nibud), Palermo Urban Solutions Hub (PUSH), ST Skills Together Srls, Tilburg University, Warsaw School of Economics and Université Paris Dauphine.
ANGLE FACTSHEET 1: IMPROVING YOUTH FINANCIAL LITERACY THROUGH GAMES
