Hundreds of primary and secondary school children are expected to benefit significantly from financial literacy exposure during this new academic year.
Phase two of the FLITE (Financial Literacy) Schools’ Programme 2024-2025 was officially launched, and the National Financial Literacy Programme’s logo was unveiled, last Friday, at Baobab Towers.
Minister of Energy and Business, Senator Lisa Cummins, underscored the importance of financial literacy education, saying it was necessary to expose all Barbadians, including children, to it.
“This is critical for people to be able to learn how to use money…, not just to save but to invest and to grow businesses,” Senator Cummins stated.
She said financial literacy was also about the development of an entrepreneurial economy and a growth-driven economy.
“It is about opportunities for empowerment, enfranchisement, inclusion…, and intrapreneurship – people working in their respective fields and who have an opportunity to have businesses while they’re working full-time. So, the notion that people who are working should not be able to also have businesses is, in my judgment, an outdated notion. It is an outdated notion!
“The notion that you can earn or generate and create wealth from a single stream of income is an outdated notion. We need to be able to develop capacity and empower our people, even as they work in full-time jobs and give their all to their full-time jobs, to simultaneously be able to build and grow businesses, and in turn, build and grow wealth,” the Minister surmised.
She added that with the creation and growth of wealth, the next step would be to help people create generational wealth. She said it was necessary to also use the principles of financial literacy to build businesses to ensure they survived and thrived.
“Our children are the ones that have to be empowered to start the journey from the very beginning,” she indicated. Senator Cummins thanked the AffinityPlus Credit Union for coming on board and supporting the Ministry of Energy and Business’ National Financial Literacy Programme for Schools.