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WF : What is the need currently for financial literacy for children?
Aashish : As an investment management company, we try to reach out to adults through our awareness initiatives and educate them on the "why" and "how" of investing. While we continue on this mission, it is amply clear that our children need to be oriented into financial literacy at a much early age. Children rightfully expect the world from their parents, and in their own way parents try to give them their best, but do children understand and appreciate what goes into all of this? Can we prepare them better for the future Our educational system prepares children for earning money as they grow, but having earned how does one make that money earn more money? As we see the paradigm of money change before our very eyes, we need to get children to understand the value of money as they "see" and "understand" and not just by what they read as part of their academic process.
WF : What makes this initiative different?
Aashish : To connect with the children, we had to think like children. Today they are in any case pressured with academics, so burdening them further with books to read, would not cut any ice with them. This is where our partnership with My Financial Advisor has helped. Financial Premier LeagueTM is a unique game board format, created by MFA that appeals to a child's interest in playing games and through such an interactive format it educates on key financial concepts.
WF : Could you share a little but more about this game?
Aashish : The game Financial Premier League™ has been developed by Mr. Amar Pandit from My Financial Advisor. FPLTM aims at helping children and individuals learn sound money concepts through an entertaining and exciting game. It endeavors to teach real life decision making skills and is a primer for children on how to develop good money habits, understand what savings, expenses, banking, insurance, investments and charity is all about. The players go through various situations that are served to them through cards and the decisions made help them to either earn more money or bear expenses.
WF : What will be the key takeaways from this game?
Aashish : A couple of key things that we feel will remain with children. At a basic level it orients them to financial concepts like Mutual Fund, Life insurance, Postal savings. More importantly, it focuses on the value of money - each child has a kitty of money - from which he needs to decide on what expenses to bear for junk food or gadgets or a trip to the movie. These are incidents that children face today in life, but are they thinking about what they are spending. The game urges them to do just that.,
WF : How have you taken the concept of FPL TM to children?
Aashish : The activity that sees the culmination on 22nd actually began its journey about 6 months back. We were clear that such an activity needs the blessings of schools to succeed. We have conducted the activity in 2 phases.
Phase 1- An Financial Quotient test was conducted in select schools at a junior and senior level. Of the 6000 plus students who took the test, 40 finalists were selected from 10 schools. -
Phase 2- This is the grand finale on September 22, 2012 which will have the 40 finalists compete with each other at an inter school level. Over and above these rounds there are various school level activities and audience rounds where kids other than the participants can The campaign is also amplified through Social Media.
WF : Any comments in conclusion.
Aashish : The reason we have chosen to come on this platform is to address our partners. This event is a pure edutainment event, we believe that our advisors today play an important role in shaping the financial awareness for our investors.
We would request them to attend this event along with their investors & their families - thus taking the baton of financial literacy ahead. We hope that children enjoy this journey to financial awareness and gain an appreciation of what their parent's go through in earning money, managing expenses and investing to create wealth for the future of the family.
We hope to see you at the grand finale of the Financial Premier League on September 22, 2012 at IES college at Bandra, Mumbai.
FPLTM and Financial Premier League are registered trademarks of My Financial Advisor
Wealth Forum caught up with Amar Pandit - the creator of this innovative board game, to understand what led him and his team at My Financial Advisor to come up with this novel idea. Here is what Amar has to say :
"I strongly believe that financial literacy is all about financial self defence. Unless you are sufficiently financially literate, you will not be able to defend yourself from the pitfalls of managing your money poorly, and suffering from the consequences of unwise financial decisions. We Indians are a nation of great savers but not intelligent investors. We need to migrate to that level of becoming wise investors. When we talk of the next generation, I don't think we can be sure that they are indeed imbibing even the savings habit - with so many temptations to spend money that keep growing by the day - and no immediate benefit seen by them of saving up for a rainy day.
In order to get NextGen to appreciate the basics of savings, investment and protection, we came up with this board game that uses the cricket format - which is almost a religion in our country. It's a fun format that engages children and through the game, makes them understand the importance of saving money, spending judiciously, investing wisely and protecting adequately. The winner of the game will be one who balances out all of these. Others, who take needless risks or are unwise, will find themselves losing out as the game progresses. The loss in the game will hopefully teach them important lessons for dealing with real life situations that they will encounter as their own lives progress to adulthood."
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