Posts tagged under finance
Financial education: a case study from Laos
The following is an excerpt from the upcoming ATM Bulletin on education. Stay tuned for the release of the new issue!
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One of the more important elements of designing a pro-poor intervention in the education sector is content, i.e. deciding what to teach the children. The debate on content revolves around whether poor students should be given the same chance to excel academically as other students, or whether they should be taught lessons and skills that would allow them to improve their lives without requiring further investment in schooling.
However, not all curriculum interventions are subject to heated debate. There are cases where additional lessons are given in the form of life skills that would be generally useful for all students, but are especially important for disadvantaged groups. For example, in the field of microfinance, one of the biggest challenges that microfinance providers face is the unreliable behavior of their clients. Households in poor communities are unlikely to be financially literate, let alone financially responsible. Thus, one microfinance organization in Vientiane decided to nip the problem in the bud and teach financial literacy to children.
