In response to South Africa’s frightening youth unemployment rate of 58.2 per cent, financial services company Momentum Metropolitan Group celebrated the success of its Kickstarz programme at its offices in Sandton on 4 December.
Metropolitan recognises that young people need all the help they can get in understanding financial concepts that could help drive sustainable self-employment.
According to Momentum Metropolitan Group CSI manager Charlene Lackay, a majority of the youth population today do not have adequate knowledge with regards to financial literacy. “It is a combination of luck, having parents with good intentions and maybe just being at the right place at the right time. If I think about how I got a student loan, how I learnt how to manage my paycheck after getting my first job,” she said.
She added that a programme such as this would be highly beneficial if it could be embedded into the curriculum as it is quite interactive and focuses on engaging with the learners. According to Lackay, this approach does, however, make the programme quite costly to implement.
“We don’t just send you a manual or send you two brochures and say there you can read about how to be financially literate. We take the time to go into schools and take the time to engage with learners in a way that will matter to them.”
The Kickstarz programme was initially piloted in 2016 at the University of Johannesburg Metropolitan Academy in Brixton. “We had the assumption that because this was a Stem (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) focused school, it would be best suited to test how a financial literacy programme would work.”
In an effort to appeal to more of the youth demographic, the content was presented to the learners as an opportunity to start their own sneaker businesses. Each group was tasked with designing a pair of sneakers, compiling a business plan and creating a brand philosophy using an app that was specifically developed for the exercise.
At each school, three separate lessons are included into the school day over a five-day period. These lessons cover important topics around financial education such as budgeting, saving, bad debt, net income, deductions, blacklisting and needs versus wants. Learners were also encouraged to discuss the concepts at home with their parents.
“The programme not only teaches financial principles but also valuable skills such as teamwork and presentation skills, which are not necessarily taught in textbooks.”
The programme has since actively engaged with 1 500 to 1 700 Grade 11 learners each year across Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and Western Cape.
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https://staging.citizen.co.za/sandton-chronicle/184247/literacy-tutors-from-help2read-host-holiday-reading-clubs/
