The Investor Education Fund (IEF) will kick off Financial Literacy Month with an event is designed to be a crash course for high school students about the importance of managing their money.
The IEF will stage Ontario’s first Financial Literacy Youth Summit on November 1 in Richmond Hill.
“Our research has shown that students want to learn about managing money, and they expect to learn it in school,” says IEF President Tom Hamza. “The Financial Literacy Youth Summit is a fun, engaging way to get students the information they’re looking for, in a way that makes it fun to learn.”
Close to 600 provincial high school students are slated to participate in the event, which includes the Funny Money for High School Assembly Program, a program where professional comedians discuss the basics of money management in terms that inspire both laughter and learning. Funny Money, sponsored by IEF and the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC), has reached more than 250,000 students across the country.
The inaugural Summit will also feature integrated social media discussion throughout the event, with the intention of spurring ongoing dialogue about student financial literacy. Credit management, the impact of debt and the power of compound growth on savings top the list of timely topics that will be discussed throughout the event.
According to the recently released 2012 Youth Financial Literacy Study from IEF, seven in 10 teens say knowledge of personal finance is important, but only four in 10 feel they are somewhat or very prepared for managing their personal finances after high school. Only about one-quarter say their schools provide them with most or all of the financial information they need.
The IEF will also mark the start of Financial Literacy Month by opening the TMX on November 1, and Hamza will participate in a discussion on financial education initiatives at a national launch event hosted by the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC) in Ottawa.