With longer life expectancies, higher living costs, and greater market volatility, the stakes are higher for the types of financial decisions that young adults must make today than they were 50 years ago. Many children will have learnt the basics of budgeting, saving, and spending from their parents. More in-depth knowledge, on the other hand, is clearly required to make educated financial decisions about investing money and saving for the future.
Mobile applications, for example, can play a key role in teaching children and young adults. Learning is an ongoing process, and the emphasis has now shifted entirely to eLearning. Students can learn at their own pace and take their time understanding things thanks to mobile phones and various feature-oriented applications, as everything is just a click away.
To address this, a new mobile app was recently launched by the Central Provident Fund (CPF) Board on last Friday (July 16). The mobile app is targeted at secondary school students, to teach them key financial literacy concepts and how their CPF can be used, by simulating adult life decisions.
The students get to pick an avatar and carry out activities like building and furnishing their dream homes. They must also plan and budget for their relocations. The decisions they make result in a variety of outcomes.
A senior manager of outreach and partnerships from the CPF Board said, “The youth should learn about financial literacy and CPF and know about their spending habits. They should cultivate good saving habits from young. It is timely to introduce this programme now as it complements the school’s curriculum well.” Since secondary school students are getting personal learning devices this year, they would be able to access the app more easily, she said.
Financial capability development in young adults can help identify blind spots and inform savings, investment, and insurance decisions that contribute to one’s long-term financial well-being. Though such decisions would be years away for these teenagers in real life, she explained that the app was designed to help them become acquainted with key financial literacy concepts and develop good saving habits.
A 15-year-old student said “The programme taught me to prepare for my future. The game is also effective as it reflects situational scenarios which helped me to visualise and understand how to plan smartly for the future. “The game emphasises the importance of savings and helped me to understand the importance of differentiating between needs and wants.”
Schools that are interested in carrying out similar lessons can approach the CPF Board for resources. The app is also available for the public to download on the App Store and Google Play.
Learning and innovation are inextricably linked. A lot of things are evolving in this Era of Innovation, including education. Learning is a continuous process that has no end. No matter how much you learn or understand, there are still things left to explore, but the only thing you need is information.
The ability to access any information from anywhere at any time makes the learning process convenient and simple. In these changing times, mobile phones provide instant access to information. A mobile phone can make many of your tasks easier and save you a lot of time. Visiting the library and selecting books, as well as data collection, are no longer difficult tasks.
Correspondingly, there is a digitalisation wave in education that is changing the trend. E-Learning is the new requirement for students. E-Learning mobile apps are becoming increasingly popular, owing to their unique ability to make learning enjoyable for students.
