Our project does not try to re-invent the wheel.

Over the past years, financial literacy has moved into centre stage in many countries. National and international public authorities, as well as private institutions and organisations have been and are currently developing a number of initiatives promoting financial literacy to help improve financial education and literacy standards.

Since one of the aims of our project is to build on existing training resources, we did not want to ‘re-invent the wheel’ but we identified and selected best practice examples for training materials, and exercises that are available in the eight countries of the partnership. This work has also built on the findings of the preceding learning partnership and on the framework analysis.

A part of the contributions comes from the European on-line consumer education site DOLCETA. This platform provides 27 country versions of products in 21 languages and has been financed by the European Commission. It offers information in hundreds of articles on a range of consumer issues and financial education. The materials are presented in a user friendly and accessible way.

DOLCETA also aims to support teachers in primary and secondary schools and adult educators to improve their teaching, enrich their students learning and to save time. The Teachers’ Corner of DOLCETA provides lesson plans, fact sheets, resources, tools, quizzes and games that can be used in a range of different curriculum areas.

The Financial Services module of DOLCETA provides information and advice on six areas related to financial literacy. Each section contains explanatory notes, practical examples and tests to assess the learner’s understanding. Some internet links are also available in each session to provide further reference. The six sections are

•  Managing a family budget 
•  Running a bank account
•  Means of payment
•  Consumer credit
•  Mortgages
•  Savings & Investments

In order to support the DOLCETA’s objectives to enhance public access to information about such issues and to increase the sustainability of that valuable resource that promotes distribution and also authorises its reproduction, the project consortium has decided to make use of this valuable resource and to include practical examples with their respective links in the Toolbox.