Moscow, April 4-5, 2011 The World Bank & Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation

Workshop on Financial Literacy and Financial Consumer Protection

INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE IN FINANCIAL LITERACY

LESSONS FROM POLAND Policy making, design & implementation process - what is important?

Marcin Polak Futuredu & Think! Institute Foundation

Warsaw, Poland Photo:  (C)  NBP  

Index

 Introduction  National Strategy

and the Yearly Plan  Objectives  Learning Process

Design  Planning / Designing  Resources  Evaluation

Photo:  sxc.hu  

Introduction  Poland – an interesting case on

the Financial Literacy world map  No National Strategy – the

Government is not interested in promoting Financial Literacy

 The leading role of the central bank – the National Bank of Poland (NBP) has its own educational strategy and objectives. NBP spent over 50 Million EUR on the economic and financial education in years 2002-2010 Photo:  (C)  NBP  

Introduction  Many NGO FL programs

supported from the NBP & the financial industry sources

 No single coordination office for nationwide financial literacy campaign

 Consequence: disseminated educational efforts (even in large numbers) have no significant impact on financial knowledge of the society

Photo:  sxc.hu  

Introduction

 This has been researched well – in years 2007-2010 despite many FL programs, the level of knowledge is still not very satisfactory

 However, financial consumers do behave reasonably – the Polish society was not much affected by the global financial crisis 2007-2008

Photo:  Kronenberg  Founda:on  

National Strategy and the Yearly Plan

 The National Strategy for Financial Education is important tool of policy coordination when an action on national level is being considered

 It helps to constitute the coordination office, gives mandate and objectives, shows the roadmap, specifies instruments of the campaign

 Better results of the FL campaign when Annual Plans are voted year-by-year within the long-term Strategy - it gives space for modification of directions and particular programs

Photo:  sxc.hu  

National Strategy and the Yearly Plan

 The role of the coordination office is very important – in designing, programming and assessing real value of implemented FL programs

 Responsibility for designing FL policy is at the national level

Photo:  sxc.hu  

Objectives

 Where are possible limits to FL national campaign?

 From School to Elderly? – where is the target group?

 To disseminate knowledge? or to build awareness?

 A part of a school curriculum? or beyond the school curriculum?

 Time factor – immediate results of programs? or long-term step-by-step improvement of general financial awareness?

Photo:  sxc.hu  

Objectives – sample (the NBP case)

The strategic goals could were specified as:

 To deliver basic financial knowledge and skills to secondary schools and universities (for young people)

 To give instruction and counteract wrong economic and financial knowledge for better economic awareness (for adults)

 To promote equal access to financial education resources by developing virtual education platform(s) (for everybody)

Photo:  sxc.hu  

Objectives – sample (the NBP case)

NBP specified in its Strategy and Annual Action Plans that there would be:

 I. programs addressed to affect deep economic culture (through  formal  educa:on  process  and  training:  pupils,  students,  teachers,  journalists)

 II. mass education programs to affect shallow economic culture (through mass media programs incl. edutainment: adults)

 III. virtual education – internet platform with educational and information resources (through e-learning and edutainment)

Photo:  sxc.hu  

Objectives of the NBP strategy

I.   II.  

III.  

formal  educa:on  mass  media,  

informal  educa:on  

virtual  educa:on  

Photo:  sxc.hu  

Learning Process Design

 21st Century learning process - technology is important part of our lifes (...and education)

 School models are behind civilization’s changes – although young people are connected to networks all the time

 Be innovative – use powerful channels and tools for communicating knowledge and ideas

 Think about using ICT in social education – e.g. mobile phones or iPods

Photo:  sxc.hu  

Learning Process Design

 Repeating the message is important – because we forget easily

 Ebbinghaus curve

hDp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ForgeHng_curve  

Ebbinghaus curve – how we forget in the learning process – 1/2 of the

material in first 2 hours…

Repeating the message – more chances for memorizing

Learning Process Design

 Multiply the message in various channels - reaching target groups from many directions

The  Coordina,on  Office  

journalists  

media  

schools  

families  

internet  

teachers  social  networks  

Photos:  sxc.hu  

Learning Process Design

 Build a virtual learning platform  People will listen to the message, but they will

forget it – you can offer them a website to search for more valuable and reliable information

Photo:  ZrozumFinanse.pl  

Learning Process Design

 A concept for the FL campaign: the Wallet Education - talk about finances as about the money in wallets of your target group.

 All economics must be shown in action. Practical approach, limited theory. Show a link between a person’s wallet and a particular economic mechanism (money relations)

 Use arguments based on a reason and logic (opportunities), don’t afraid to shock with possible negative consequences (threats)

Photo:  sxc.hu  

Planning / Designing

 Who’s the Boss? FL campaign must have a leader, being a spokesperson for all actions (supported by the press office)

 Both layers of the economic awareness (deep and shallow) must be addressed in the FL campaign - include different types of action, like training and mass media programs

 Mass media as Financial Literacy campaign major actors (all, incl. Internet)

 Training: first of all – train the trainers and knowledge disseminators (teachers, journalists, academicians, social leaders)

Photo:  sxc.hu  

Planning / Designing

 Develop virtual education in a modern, interactive way; promote the platform in the Internet, attract users to visit it

 Visualise (potential) problems, attract the audience by showing benefits, convince to respond to action calls, make interactions

 Allow financial edutainment. Play, have fun and learn (e.g. In simulations) – this is a good method for financial literacy

 In schools: go beyond curriculum – offer students practical knowledge and tools they would be happy to use in their life

Photo:  sxc.hu  

Planning / Designing

 Do marketing. Education without social marketing is less effective. Significant part of your budget should be marketing and promotion

 Networks! People are connected to social networks for most of a day (and night) – it changed the way we as people learn today

 Multiply the same message in different tools and programs (multidirection communication)

 Repeat the message again and again

Planning / Designing

 The responsibility for tailoring effective programs is in the coordination team. No one would better know strategic goals and the FL policy

 But to implement programs build your FL coalition on national and local levels

 This is a long-term action plan. Do not expect solid changes in a short time period. Be ready it will consume significant budgets!

Photo:  sxc.hu  

Resources

Arrange your resources – you go to fight the financial ignorance – what will you need?

 Good ideas for financial education programs  Surveys data on your target groups  Staff with mixed competences (eg. educators,

economists, sociologists – rather experienced practicioners)

Photo:  sxc.hu  

Resources

 Network of reliable allies (to build national and local coalitions)

 Supporting (external) experts (many)  Identified effective channels of

communication (e.g. not much sens to invest in press inserts)

 Funding (rather a lot of money)  Communication policy (media relations) – FL

campaign is about educating masses – mass media must be involved and the press office must support FL educators

Photo:  sxc.hu  

Evaluation

 Measure where you are  Get data on the

effectiveness of tools you use – pre-test, post-test, surveys, skill checking...

 In a long term FL program some of your action would be experiments; they need to be evaluated before continuing

www.economiceducator.eu

Thank you very much!

•  Financial  Literacy  is  a  life  skill  of  21st  Century  –  (lifelong  learning)  

Marcin Polak Futuredu & Think! Institute Foundation

Warsaw, Poland marcin.polak [at] futuredu.pl

Marcin Polak

  Marcin Polak was the Head of the Economic Education in the National Bank of Poland (2002-2007), being responsible for strategic planning and implementation of the nationwide and international economic education and financial literacy projects. These initiatives were addressed, among others, to schools, libraries, students, teachers, journalists, priests, judges, as well as, through the mass media, to general public opinion.

  He was also responsible for developing international cooperation of central banks in the field of economic education and initiated close cooperation in the field of economic education between banks of the European System of Central Banks.

  (Since 2008) President of the Board of the Think Global Ltd., founder of the Think! Institute for Development of Communications and Education, owner and publisher of the Edunews.pl - one of the largest educational web sites in Poland (250 thousand users) promoting modern education programs and tools for the education sector as well as EconomicEducator.eu - international platform for economic and financial educators and experts. He is a member of the European Commission Expert Group on the Financial Education.