Almost every third Hungarian student has a particularly high level of financial literacy, and 81.7 percent of Hungarian students have financial skills at or above the level expected from a social point of view - this was revealed by the 2022 PISA test for measuring financial literacy, prepared in cooperation with the Office of Education and the Financial Compass Foundation from its Hungarian meaning. The average score achieved by Hungarian students is 492, which exceeds the 475-point average of the 20 countries participating in the measurement.

According to the Pénziránytű Alapítvány's announcement sent to MTI on Monday, the analysis revealed that although the financial behavior of Hungarian students is outstanding in several aspects, in the constantly changing financial environment, there is a great need for goal-oriented school attitude formation.

The PISA assessment examined what kind of financial problems students are able to solve. 30 percent of 15-year-old Hungarian students know, understand and correctly apply, for example, their knowledge of bank account management or the calculation of interest rates, take into account their longer-term consequences in their financial decisions, and many of them also have the ability to foresee and plan ahead.

81.7 percent of Hungarian students can at least identify the most common financial products and expressions, know the purpose of financial documents that occur in everyday life, and can apply simple calculation operations in familiar financial situations.

It also played a significant role in the development of financial self-confidence if the student had financial products and gained experience in using them. For example, Hungarian students who had a bank account scored 28 points higher than students who did not. A result that says a lot about saving behavior is that Hungarian students have a very high willingness to save (over 92 percent), but this is typically done in cash: only 44.1 percent of 15-year-old Hungarian students set aside money in a bank account in the year before the survey.

The measurement also pointed out the importance of financial education at school, which can compensate for deficiencies arising from the family background and successfully mitigate the resulting inequalities. Hungarian students encountered financial concepts in class to a greater extent than the average of the participating countries: for example, 9 out of 10 students learned about the bank card, the concept of an entrepreneur and wages, and two-thirds of them mentioned that they dealt with the role of money at school, they wrote.

A detailed examination of the results shows that

the financial literacy of Hungarian students holds its place well in the international field.

In Hungary, the development of financial awareness is mainly implemented in primary and secondary schools by integrating it into subjects. At the time of the measurement, students were typically exposed to financial knowledge in mathematics, geography, and history subjects, as well as in the 10th grade of technical schools, compulsory financial and entrepreneurship subjects. Thanks to the ongoing developments since 2015, more than 700,000 free publications a year, including math workbooks, 8th and 12th grade textbooks for civics, and the thematic workbooks Citizens' Finances developed by the Pénziránytű Foundation also contain practical financial information. knowledge. In addition, the Pénziránytű Alapítvány's free accredited teacher training courses, in which nearly 4,000 teachers have already participated, also serve as an opportunity to effectively develop financial literacy in schools.

PISA examined the level of financial literacy among 15-year-old students for the 4th time since 2012. For the first time, Hungary joined the financial literacy module of PISA in 2022 covering 20 countries.

MTI

Cover photo: MTI/Balázs Mohai