The Ministry of Education recommends the Bank of Russia's Financial Literacy manual for all schools
The Financial Literacy manual prepared at the Bank of Russia’s initiative is included in the federal list of manuals that the Ministry of Education recommends for Russian schools. This list also includes a revised set of Social Sciences textbooks edited by L. Bogolyubov. With input from the Bank of Russia, they will cover financial literacy topics for the first time.
Currently, financial literacy is studied at all levels of the general and secondary vocational education and, from 2019, this subject is scheduled to be included in the federal state standard of higher education. Information about this was unveiled at the end of December 2018, during the first meeting of the Interagency Coordination Commission tasked with the implementation of the Strategy for the Improvement of Financial Literacy in the Russian Federation in 2017–2023.
During the meeting the decision was made that the Minfin and the Bank of Russia shall prepare a draft standard regional programme to improve the financial literacy of the general public. The programme is supposed to include the most efficient regional and federal initiatives and best practices implemented by the representatives of the mega-regulator and Russia's main financial agency.
The preparation of the standard programme is the next logical step following the work carried out by the Bank of Russia and the Minfin at the regional level. The Bank of Russia concluded 91 agreements with the executive authorities of 85 Russian constituents on improving the financial literacy of the general public. The regulator's representatives gave 10 thousand open lessons at schools, colleges and higher educational institutions country-wide. Additionally, the Bank of Russia launched dedicated programmes designed for the whole period of stay at federal and regional children's camps, including Sirius, the children's educational centre. Online lessons offered by the Bank of Russia since 2015 have helped to expand the coverage of these initiatives. In 2018, these lessons reached more than 1.5 million persons. Starting 2018, informational video clips on financial literacy prepared by the Bank of Russia have been broadcast at multifunctional centres offering state and municipal services, social service centres, public receptions in the offices of executive bodies, educational institutions, transport and even in cinema halls.
Once approved by the commission, the standard regional programme will be forwarded to all Russian constituents for further implementation. Work on the programme implementation in regions across Russia will be organised along the same lines as the work to manage the implementation of the Strategy for the Improvement of Financial Literacy at the federal level, i.e. based on systemic parity and partnership under the co-chairmanship of regional administrations and regional Bank of Russia branches.
The Interagency Commission approved a list of indicators and implementation performance indicators for the Strategy for the Improvement of Financial Literacy in the Russian Federation, as well as their pre-set basic values. For example, indicators with the highest weight include the share of citizens that understand the risk/return correlation and the percentage of the population possessing a so-called safety cushion (extra money set aside for emergencies). Another important indicator is the percentage of persons who know where to address their complaints about financial consumer rights violations and who regularly compare the conditions of financial products offered by different companies.
