MORE than 200 upper primary pupils from 20 schools across Johor, Selangor and Negeri Sembilan are getting ready to sharpen their financial literacy skills to raise funds to address causes they care about.
With a packed schedule of enterprise meetings with financial industry leaders and international counterparts, these budding social entrepreneurs are the pioneers of Malaysia’s first Social Enterprise Network for Schools – Good SENS.
The newly launched Good SENS is the flagship financial literacy programme of the Financial Industry Collective Outreach (FINCO) – a collaboration between more than 100 financial institutions in Malaysia with the guidance of Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM).
Aligned to the strategic goals of the Ministry of Education Malaysia (MOE), the curated modules are also mapped to MOE’s financial literacy curriculum, and offer young people the opportunity to learn related concepts through application in real-life situations as well as acquire the skills and knowledge needed to make responsible financial decisions – and have fun while doing it.
“If you consider the core skills needed by social entrepreneurs, you’ll recognise that money matters is key if they are to survive long enough to achieve their social mission,” FINCO Chairman Tan Sri Azman Hashim said while representing the financial industry at the recent virtual launch ceremony.
Good SENS –facilitated by Social Enterprise Academy (SEA) Malaysia – is designed to address the low levels of financial literacy or poor financial behaviours among many Malaysians which lead to high levels of debt and bankruptcy, especially amongst youth.
“It is therefore vital to the inclusive growth of Malaysia’s economy that our young people are provided with the financial education and tools they need to become financially resilient as soon as possible,” Azman added.
Established in 2017, FINCO’s collective efforts aim to guide as well as provide children and youth with the right educational tools to help achieve their respective life aspirations.
The joint initiative of Good SENS aligns with MOE’s National Curriculum and Malaysia’s National Strategy for Financial Literacy. The latter was launched by the Financial Education Network in 2019 to set clear goals for improving financial literacy to support the vision of shared prosperity.
Explaining how the programme works, FINCO CEO Clare Walker said each participant’s journey will take them through an immersive social enterprise and financial literacy training, including budgeting, business planning and determining their social mission into actually running a start-up social enterprise.
“Finally, these social entrepreneurs will come together to showcase their success at a ‘Dragons’ Den’ competition where they will compete for investment,” Walker explained.
“Similar to the UK reality series ‘Dragon’s Den’ going into the Den involves pitching for investment to an extremely successful group of judges – a soon to be revealed panel of financial industry players and social enterprise experts.”
In addition to requiring pupils to showcase their smart money skills, this core component will rely on good communication and presentation skills, and wrap with a much-anticipated award ceremony come November.
The pupils will be guided by a team of expert – consisting of English Language school teachers, financial industry mentors, facilitators – and a network of friends from around the world going through a similar journey with SEA Malaysia in Scotland, Britain, Australia, Malawi and Egypt. – May 12, 2021
