Financial education at school with FinComp

A framework for adults, used at school

FinComp is the European financial competence framework for adults, developed by the European Commission with the OECD. That has to be said upfront, because it shapes the use: the 22 competences described assume an income, an account, borrowing and saving decisions.

That is not an insurmountable limit. It is the most complete and recognised reference available, and schools can use it -- provided they select rather than deliver everything.

What to select, by age

Lower secondary. It makes sense to work on money and transactions: the forms money takes, price versus cost, tracking a purchase, telling a need from a want. These are competences verifiable in real situations from a teenager's life.

Upper secondary, first two years. Add planning and managing finances: budgeting, saving towards a goal, the value of time in economic decisions.

Final years. Risk and reward becomes workable -- the link between the two, diversification, recognising scams -- and above all the financial landscape: what consumer protections exist, who to turn to, how to verify a piece of financial information.

That last area is the most neglected and the one that protects most. An eighteen-year-old who knows where to complain is better protected than one who can calculate compound interest.

The three dimensions change the method

FinComp describes every competence across knowledge, behaviours and attitudes. At school that structure has a direct consequence: a pathway working only on knowledge covers a third of the goal.

• Knowledge is taught.
• Behaviours are practised: budget simulations, role play on a purchase decision, analysis of a real anonymised contract.
• Attitudes are built through the experience of having understood something that looked out of reach. They are not transmitted in a lecture.

Three mistakes to avoid

1. Turning it into financial mathematics. Calculating a rate is a skill, not the competence. A student who calculates interest perfectly and does not recognise an unfavourable contract term is not financially competent.

1. Delegating it to one external session a year. A meeting with an expert is useful as a trigger, but the three dimensions do not develop in two hours.

1. Ignoring transversal competences. Assessing risk and reward requires critical thinking; resisting commercial pressure requires self-regulation. These are competences described by LifeComp, and if they are not developed the financial pathway rests on nothing.

The advantage of using a European reference

Anchoring the pathway to FinComp rather than to a home-made syllabus yields three concrete results: objectives are verifiable, the work is comparable with other schools', and European project design -- where financial competence is a recurring theme in calls -- finds a recognised vocabulary.

Explore the 4 areas, 22 competences and 367 descriptors on the FinComp portal at ExplorerHub.