Secondary scholars on the way to making smart money moves
The World Bank's Global Findex Database showed that South Africans are among the top borrowers in the world.
The World Bank’s Global Findex Database showed that South Africans are among the top borrowers in the world, this shows that more work needs to be done on financial literacy amongst South Africans.
The Primestars Smartbucks (Mind Your Moolah) and Step Up To a Start Up programmes aim to fix this problem at the root by arming secondary school students from disadvantaged communities with the necessary tools to make smart money moves.
The Smartbucks (Mind Your Moolah) programme equips students with knowledge on to manage debt, budget, save, invest, how to handle their earnings, property ownership and the importance of delayed gratification.
The programme aims to help the students manage their money by changing their attitude and behaviour towards money.
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“A lack of proper financial literacy is still a huge concern in South Africa. Consumers young and old still struggle to demonstrate a strong grasp of basic financial management principle; as a result, they are unable to manage their finances properly to avoid being over indebted.
“The Smartbucks programme seems to have found a formula that delivers financial literacy in an effective manner that appeals perfectly to the youth,” said Tracey Unser, Group Executive for Corporate Citizenship at Liberty.
The ultimate aim is to empower money smart young people who will start their own businesses. This has become particularly important with the rising of the fourth industrial revolution which, while bringing innovation and ease to some activities, is threatening to render some occupations and whole industries obsolete.
“In this fast-evolving world, access to technology through mobile devices plays a critical role in lowering the barriers to entry, levelling the playing field and enabling innovative start-ups to emerge.
“New technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, 3D printing and the internet are creating whole new industries at an unprecedented rate.
“This is due to the innate ability of technology to lower costs, extend reach and leverage data to make consumer experiences more valuable. In order to prepare our youth to take advantage of this, our education systems must be redesigned and retooled to teach learners to process data, programme, code, and create apps,” said Martin Sweet, founder and managing director at Primestars.
Innovation, especially in the IT industry, is importance and these two students from Charlotte Maxeke Secondary School who are former beneficiaries of the programme are in the process of developing an app.
“The program has really changed our lives it encouraged us to be more innovative, creative and look at things at a bigger picture. After the program we participated in more entrepreneurship programs and we are still on the journey of creating our app,” Nobuhle Motlounu concluded.
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