Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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1001. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the way she plans to support primary and secondary schools in the delivery of financial literacy and well-being for students; the measures that are currently in place; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19154/21]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Deputy, Financial literacy and well-being for students is explored through a number of curricular subjects and areas across primary and post-primary sectors which I have outlined below.

Primary Level:

At primary level, a new mathematics curriculum is in development. The money strand of this specification aims to establish foundational knowledge and skills in financial literacy and management. The specification will serve to develop children’s understanding that money holds and determines the value of goods and services. Children will be encouraged to think about making good choices and decisions with their money through processes of negotiation and by calculating the unit value of items. They will also be introduced to concepts such as budgeting, saving, spending and taxation.

Junior Cycle.

In the Level 1 Learning Programme, the Priority Learning Unit (PLU) on ‘Numeracy’ is seen as fundamental to daily living. A key aspect of learning in this area is in supporting students to participate in real-life situations where the use of mathematics is relevant. Specific to money students are asked in this PLU to:

- Participate in a shopping experience or in an activity where real money is used functionally

- Financial literacy and well-being can also be found in the PLU on ‘Personal Care and Well-being’ where they are asked to: Plan, shop for and prepare personalised healthy food

In the Level 2 Learning Programme, the PLU concerned with ‘Numeracy’ is described as a daily living skill, with significant applications to home and community life, as well as in the area of academic progress and achievement. This unit draws on a broad range of real-life experiences, helping students develop knowledge and understanding in a range of topics such as number, shapes, space, money, time, and measurement. The Element ‘Managing Money’ asks students to:

- Recognise frequently used Euro notes and coins

- Pay for an item correctly and count the change in a mock-up or real-life shopping transaction

- Explain a shopping receipt, in relation to what was bought and correct change given

- Understand a common household bill in relation to the service provided, how much being charged and how it can be paid for

- Recognise the difference between using money to buy essential items and luxury items

- Plan a personal budget for a week

- Save a small amount of money each week to buy an item

Financial literacy and well-being can also be found in the PLU ‘Living in the Community’, in the element ‘Making consumer choices’, where the students are asked to:

- List two organisations that work on behalf of consumers

- Describe situations when an item needs to be brought back to a shop

- Describe what a guarantee is

Financial literacy and well-being is an important component of Junior Cycle Mathematics. Recent changes to the mathematics specification at Junior Cycle empower teachers to provide opportunities for students to link mathematics to financial awareness and well-being. Both the Mathematical Investigation (MI) that students engage with in 2nd year and the Statistical investigation (SI) from 3^rdyear provide opportunities to research a question they have about some financial phenomena of interest from the world around them or that they have come across in the course of their mathematical studies or their studies in other subjects. The Investigations comprises of four areas of activity: defining the problem statement, finding a strategy and translating it to mathematics (if necessary), engaging with the problem and solving it if possible, and interpreting the solution in the context of the original problem.

In Junior Cycle Business Studies, there are three strands of study: Personal Finance, Enterprise and Our Economy.

- Personal finance focuses on students developing a set of skills, knowledge and values that allows them to make informed decisions to effectively and responsibly manage their financial resources.

- Enterprise encourages students to identify opportunities and turn them into practical and targeted activities within business and wider society through thedevelopment and application of their understanding, skills and values. It develops students’ basic understanding of the financial, marketing and operational functions of an organisation.

- Our economy enables students to understand the dynamic relationship between the local, national and international economic situation. It develops students’ ability to identify and understand basic economic concepts as they relate to personal finance, enterprise and the Irish economy.

In Junior Cycle Home Economics, students are enabled to:

- apply consumer decision-making skills in the management of personal, family and household resources for everyday living

- debate consumers’ rights and responsibilities

- examine how consumers are protected in Ireland by legislation, statutory and non-statutory agencies

- apply financial literacy skills in the preparation and evaluation of a budget for independent living

Leaving Certificate:

Leaving Certificate Mathematics aims to develop mathematical knowledge, skills and understanding needed for continuing education, life and work. By teaching mathematics in contexts that allow learners to see connections within mathematics, between mathematics and other subjects, and between mathematics and its applications to real life, it is envisaged that learners will develop a flexible, disciplined way of thinking and the enthusiasm to search for creative solutions. Whilst there are a number of explicit references to financial mathematics in the syllabuses that see students engage with problems involving interest, depreciation and loan repayments the use of financial contexts offer ideal opportunity for students to develop financial literacy whilst making sense of finite and infinite geometric series.

Leaving Certificate Accounting is concerned with the preparation, recording, extraction, presentation and analysis of financial information for the purpose of making economic decisions. The subject has a dual role in education in that it has both a practical and theoretical aspect. Accounting equips students with a specific language and techniques relevant to many areas of everyday financial, business and social life.

A new Leaving Certificate Economicsspecification was developed and implemented in September 2019. It includes learning outcomes relating to the demand and supply of money, creation of credit, interest rates and regulation in the financial markets.

Leaving Certificate Business contains several units that are relevant to financial literacy and well-being. Unit 4 ‘Household and business manager’ has learning outcomes related to aspects of finance that include: basic cash flow, main sources of finance, cost of finance, current account, and applying for a loan. Unit 5 ‘Business development’ learning outcomes include an understanding of main sources of finance available for business start-up. Unit 6 ‘Using skills for business’ has learning outcomes exploring the explanation of the relevance of economic indicators such as inflation, employment rates, and interest rates, economic growth, national income and national debt for individuals and the economy.

The revised module descriptor for the Leaving Certificate Applied Mathematical Applications includes units on budgeting, planning and personal finance. Mathematical Applications for the Leaving Certificate Applied is intended to prepare students for life, work, further education and a world where skills and knowledge require constant updating. The course seeks to consolidate and improve students’ mathematical knowledge, skills and concepts through practical, analytical, problem-solving applications and through integration with other modules. This includes undertaking personal budgeting plans, understanding the implications of a financial commitment and examining relevant tax requirements.

The Leaving Certificate Vocational Preparation and Guidance is centred on preparation for the world of work. The students experience work placements throughout the two years of the course. In addition they undertake an enterprise activity. In the course of this activity they must develop a business idea, work as a group to bring the idea to fruition, develop a business plan, conduct market research, work out budgets, raise finance through shares, sponsors or loans, organise the finances through bank accounts, negotiate wages and commissions, and after the enterprise has been completed liquidate the company through closing accounts, paying debts, producing profit and loss accounts and paying shares and dividends.

The enterprise link module of the Leaving Certificate Vocational Programme (LCVP) requires students to plan for an enterprise activity, undertake market research, develop an enterprise project utilising the resources available to them, carry out the enterprise activity and evaluate the experience in a final report.

In Leaving Certificate Applied Mathematics, mathematical modelling is the process through which applied mathematicians use mathematics to represent, analyse, make predictions and provide insight into real-world phenomena. Mathematical models are ubiquitous, providing a quantitative framework for understanding, predicting and making decisions in nearly every aspect of our lives..

The new specification being taught in schools from September 2021 will see students ‘Mathematically Modelling a Changing World’.In this strand, students learn about difference and differential equations and how useful these are for modelling, simulating and understanding phenomena in the real world that involve change. Examples of changing phenomena that students encounter in this strand include applications related to finance and economics such as interest that is compounded monthly/annually/continuously and supply and demand.

Many important aspects of life in society are being transformed through mathematical modelling and applications of mathematical models. Therefore, the development of an expert as well as a layperson competence in the general population to critique mathematical models and the ways in which they are used in decision-making, is becoming imperative for developing and maintaining societies based on equality and democracy.