Formation of a Mathematical Component of Financial Literacy in General School Students: Current Situation, Problems and Solution

Abstract

The article is devoted to the problem topical not only in Russia but also in many countries of the world: the formation of financial literacy in population, and in particular in general school students. The main point of this article proves that a financially literate person must have a minimum necessary mathematical knowledge and ability to apply them for an optimal use of their financial resources. The authors monitored the formation of this skill among Russian schoolchildren when organizing the First International Olympiad on Financial and Actuarial Mathematics. It actualized the problem of schoolchildren's inability to use their good mathematical knowledge in solving not only strictly regulated school mathematical tasks, but also in situations requiring the interpretation of everyday situation using the language of mathematics and subsequent analysis of the obtained result based on real situations with financial transactions. The optimal age for the formation of this skill, in the authors' opinion, is 10 to 12 (Grades 5 and 6 of general schools), which is caused by a number of objective reasons relating both to the psychological schoolchildren's characteristics in the given age category and to the suitability of the mathematics apparatus for making tasks with an economic content. However, the analysis of the textbooks on financial literacy developed within the project of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation and the World Bank "Assistance in Raising the Level of Financial Literacy in Population and Development of Financial Education in the Russian Federation" and the textbooks on mathematics currently used in Russia showed that they include an insufficient number of mathematical tasks. To make methodological recommendations for teachers engaged in the formation of schoolchildren's financial literacy both within the extracurricular activities and at the lessons of mathematics, the authors identified competences of the mathematical component of financial literacy correlated with the subject areas, components and competences of financial literacy in the system of financial competence for the students of school age developed within the joint project of the Ministry of Finance of Russia and the World Bank. The article also presents the topics of mathematical problems with an economic content correlated with the mathematical apparatus necessary to solve them.