Appearance before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (December 1, 2020): Financial literacy in Canadian schools

Issue

Education is a provincial and territorial jurisdiction. Financial education is offered in schools across the country through both mandatory and optional courses.

Background

• Quebec has offered a mandatory financial education course in Secondary 5 since September 2017.

In other provinces financial literacy programming is mandatory as part of other courses:

• Ontario: All math courses from grades 1 – 8 since September 2020 and in grade 10 Career Studies course since September 2019.
• Nova Scotia: Grade 9 Citizenship course since September 2017.
• British Columbia: throughout the math curriculum beginning in kindergarten.
• Prince Edward Island: in Career Exploration and Opportunities (CEO) grade 10 course since 2019.
• Newfoundland and Labrador: in home economics curriculum from kindergarten to grade 12.

Financial literacy courses are optional:

• Alberta: in grade 11 Career and Life Management Course.
• In 2020-2021, Alberta is enhancing financial literacy in classrooms through grant partnerships:
  • Enriched Academy received $175,000 to pilot an online program for Grades 10-12 students. Includes teachers and up to 4,000 students.
  • Junior Achievement received $200,000 to collaborate on providing 4,500 more students with hands-on, experiential financial literacy, work readiness and entrepreneurship education.
• Saskatchewan: in February 2020 added courses for grades 10 and 11; also available to grades 7 – 8.
• Manitoba: in some math courses from grades 10 - 12.
• New Brunswick: In Grade 10 math and Economics 120 courses.

Quick facts

FCAC’s relationship with ministries of education:

• Principal relationship through CMEC, the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada that oversees the PISA assessment in Canada, as well as the FCAC-funded financial literacy component.
• FCAC made presentations on the Agency’s tools and resources at annual meetings of the provincial curriculum directors convened since 2015 by the Canadian Foundation for Economic Education.

FCAC outreach activities

• FCAC regularly attends, hosts a booth, and makes presentations at the annual conference of the Canadian Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (CASFAA).
• Participates in ESDC’s Canada Learning Bond Champions’ Network.
• Participates in “Talk with our Kids about Money Day” in April.
• Shares information about resources through:
  • the FCAC Stakeholder Bulletin which goes to the Financial Literacy Youth Network (FLYN), PennyDrops and other financial literacy networks that include stakeholders targeting youth.