Financial Literacy A global study to see how it is taught to high school students. What works, what doesn’t and what does the future hold.

Who am I? Stephen Chapman: High School Mathematics Teacher Mathematics Coordinator O’Connor Catholic College. Armidale, NSW, AUSTRALIA. We have about 25 000 people in our town and about 500 students from Year 7 to 12. Boys and girls. I also do some work for BOSTES. I am the Chief Examiner for Mathematics General 2 HSC Examination. I am also a HSC marker for Mathematics. In 2015 I was lucky enough to be awarded the First State Super Financial Literacy Scholarship by the NSW government. $15 000 for a 5 week international study tour. So, here I am. My itinerary

PISA Financial Literacy Survey Results 2012 The assessment was administered in 2012 to 29 000 students in 18 participating countries and economies, representing 40% of world GDP Australia’s performance was surprisingly high (compared to literacy and numeracy results) Italy (for example) were surprisingly low. 15% of students, on average, score below the baseline level of performance in PISA. At best, these students can make simple decisions about everyday spending. They cannot for instance understand the benefit of drawing up a simple budget. - The share of students with the lowest score is over 20% in Italy, Israel and the Slovak republic (55% in Colombia!), close to 19% in France and 17% in the United States. Even top performing countries such as Australia and New Zealand have sizeable portions of their students with financial literacy skills below the baseline (10% and 16%, respectively). Only Shanghai-China stands out, with less than 2% of its students scoring at the lowest level. As you have probably guessed by now, among all the 18 countries and economies studied, Shanghai-China achieves the highest overall score in financial literacy, followed – by quite a distance! - by the Flemish Community of Belgium, Estonia, Australia, and New Zealand. Remarks by Angel Gurría, OECD Secretary-General Paris, 9 July 2014 Note: 2015 results will be published Dec 2016

Snapshot of the results: https://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/Snapshot-PISA-2012-finlit-results.pdf

What types of questions were asked? http://www.oecd.org/pisa/test/financialliteracytest/ Level 1: Invoices Level 2: Reading a share price line graph Level 3: Percentages, Level 4: Payslip (including net income), Level 5: Loans (including repayments and differing interest rates).

Where does Financial Literacy fit in the Australian (NSW) Mathematics Curriculum? Online 7-10 Mathematics syllabus Stage 4 (13 year olds) Financial Mathematics GST, Best Buys, Percentages, Profit and loss. Stage 4 (13 year olds) Fractions, Decimals and Percentages Detailed look at percentages. Stage 5.1 (15 year olds) Financial Mathematics Earning money, PAYG tax, tax returns/deductions etc, Simple Interest, Compound Interest, Budgeting. Sample Financial Maths Assignment: Yr 10 Sample Assignment Yr 9 Year 10 5.2 Assignment Sheet Vocab. sheet (Google Doc) for students to fill out Stage 5.2 (15 year olds) Financial Mathematics More CI problems including depreciation.

Here are two of my students talking about the Yr 10 Financial Mathematics assignment: March 2016 Grace Phoebe

Where does Financial Literacy fit in the Australian (NSW) Mathematics Curriculum? Online Mathematics General Syllabus Stage 6 Mathematics General: Year 11 and 12 FM1 Earning and managing money FM2 Investing money FM3 Taxation FM4 Credit and borrowing FM5 Annuities and loans Focus study: Cars Focus study: Communication (esp. mobile phone plans) Focus study: Resources. (Cost of electricity, water)

Other parts of the curriculum that have aspects of financial literacy…. Probability: Games that are not fair. Gambling odds. You will lose in the end! Financial Expectation. The social damage of gambling. Other KLA’s HSIE Commerce (Stage 5 Elective) Economics (Stage 6 Elective)

Australian Government support groups and websites National Financial Literacy Strategy ASIC's MoneySmart Financial Literacy Australia

Why should schools be Moneysmart?

Teaching mathematics using consumer and financial literacy