Government will be introducing financial literacy on the schools’ curriculum.
Minister of State in Foreign Trade and Business, Sandra Husbands, shared this news today as she addressed the Youth Forum for Small Business Week 2023, at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre Two Mile Hill, St. Michael. Two hundred Fourth Form students from 11 secondary schools attended the session.
Husbands explained that a financial literacy programme had been rolled out, starting with businesses, where valuable information on the best ways to manage, save and make more money had been shared with employees at their workplaces.
“But we believe that we must go further as a country, and start much earlier. We want to be able to bring this into the schools, so you will see in the programme of the Ministry of Education that one of the new features that they will include in your curriculum will be financial literacy.
“The Ministry of … Business Development will be partnering with them to achieve that result, because we believe if we are going to build wealth, we have to teach you how to manage wealth,” she stated.
Husbands told the students various changes were occurring around them and many things would attract their attention, but they needed to stay focused on their goals.
“So, every day you have to make determinations and decisions about whether or not that which you do today is going to take you towards your goal, otherwise you will get lost in the multitude of things that are asking…you to pay attention to them. Don’t get lost in the change,” she implored.
She noted that Government had put a number of systems in place to assist young people who are interested in becoming entrepreneurs and she identified the Youth Entrepreneurship Scheme as one such entity.
She added that financing mechanisms had been created, and stressed that it was important young people learn to manage their money now.
The Minister told the budding young entrepreneurs that it was important to be global in their outlook, think outside Barbados, and see the region and beyond as their market.
She said Government had endeavoured to seek to register all small businesses, in an effort to provide necessary help for them and plan policy around them.
The theme for this year’s Small Business Week is Facilitating A Transformative Agenda That Is Fit For Purpose.
