Modern, interactive financial education for high-school students aged 14 and over - Burgenland and UniCredit Bank Austria present first interim results
- Pilot project for new financial education programme for schools was launched in Burgenland in autumn - it has now been evaluated together with participating schools and the Burgenland Education Directorate
- Interim results: in this school year, a total of eight schools in Burgenland are participating in the pilot project, and around 200 high-school students were reached in the first phase of the project
- The first certificates were ceremoniously presented to four high-school students from BHAK Eisenstadt and BHAK Mattersburg - representing all participating schools
- In the next step, UniCredit Bank Austria plans to offer the programme to interested schools in other provinces - and from the next school year onwards throughout Austria
- MoneyMatters, a financial education programme for high-school students aged 14 and older, is only one element of UniCredit Bank Austria's broad-based financial education initiative, consisting of financial education workshops, online platforms and an Austria-wide business plan competition.
In autumn 2020, MoneyMatters, UniCredit Bank Austria's new financial education programme, was launched in a pilot project at schools in Burgenland. Now first successful interim results have been presented: The introductory workshops have already been held in seven of the eight participating schools, most of them as online workshops in distance learning. After the introductory workshop, the high-school students continue working independently on the MoneyMatters online platform.
Despite Covid 19-related limitations, a total of 200 high-school students could be reached. Around 40 students from four different schools have already completed all basic lessons and will receive a financial education certificate. Despite these difficult framework conditions, the participating teachers and students rated the pilot project very highly and gave valuable feedback. Four students from BHAK Eisenstadt and BHAK Mattersburg were presented with their financial education certificates today - representing all schools participating in the pilot project in Burgenland.
Daniela Winkler, Education Provincial Councillor of Burgenland: “Financial education is the basis for a sensible handling of money. Young people in particular are at the mercy of great financial temptations these days and cannot foresee the consequences and risks. MoneyMatters is a modern, interactive and age-appropriate programme with which high-school students learn extensive content about finance and banking.”
Susanne Wendler, Member of the Management Board of UniCredit Bank Austria, Unternehmerbank: “With MoneyMatters we offer high-school students modern, interactive learning about the basics of money and economics. In the programme, socially highly relevant current topics such as indebtedness and how to provide financially for the future are addressed and the right way to handle money is trained. Personally, it is important to me to inspire girls, in particular, for financial knowledge and thus motivate women to make their own provisions for the future. I am pleased that our financial education programme in Burgenland has been so well received. The results achieved so far make us very optimistic. In the next step, we want to offer MoneyMatters to schools in other provinces and then throughout Austria from the next school year. The transfer of financial know-how is an important focus for us in the area of sustainability and in our broad-based ‘Social Impact Banking’ initiative.”
Heinz Josef Zitz, Director of Education of Burgenland: “Financial education is a necessary basic competence in our society. For this reason, this content must also be taught in our schools. I am all the more pleased that we were the first and only province to launch a sustainable financial education initiative in cooperation with one of Austria's leading financial institutions, and I would like to thank the participating schools for their keen interest and effective cooperation. The combination of classical knowledge transfer and the use of the created platform offers an educational added value from which not only our high-school students can benefit in the long run.”
MoneyMatters - an offer for high-school students from the age of about 14 - consists on the one hand of introductory workshops at the schools, which are conducted by the independent partner Österreichisches Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum (Austrian Museum of Society and Economics). And on the other hand, an online platform consisting of 12 modules on which students then continue to work independently. The content was developed in cooperation with the renowned Institute for Economic Education at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. MoneyMatters offers an exciting mix of videos, quizzes, animated diagrams and cloze texts – from solid basic knowledge to lessons for advanced learners, for example on common investment forms for savers or on current topics such as cryptocurrencies.
Further information about UniCredit Bank Austria’s financial education offers can be found at:
https://www.bankaustria.at/en/about-us-sustainability-social-impact-banking-financial-education.jsp
An overview of UniCredit Bank Austria’s Social Impact Banking activities can be found at:
https://www.bankaustria.at/en/social-impact-banking.jsp
Enquiries:
UniCredit Bank Austria Press Office
Matthias Raftl, tel.: +43 (0) 5 05 05-52809
E-mail: matthias.raftl@unicreditgroup.at