Financial literacy of secondary school students. Case study from the Czech Republic and Slovakia

Abstract

Financial literacy is an important area of education for secondary school students, because appropriate management of personal finance creates preconditions for successful and quality life. In this article we examined the level of financial literacy of students of commercial academies in Czech Republic and Slovakia. Our results confirmed that the learning process in both countries has some reserves. The average value of correct answers regarding the savings was 16.33% in Slovakia and 21.33% in the Czech Republic, which can be classified as very low. Significantly improved results were shown by the respondents when it comes to consumer loans. The average value of correct answers in Slovakia was relatively high (87.76%). In the Czech Republic, the average value of the correct responses was 61.33%. The average value of correct answers on the use of payment cards abroad was relatively high both in Slovakia (77.55%) and the Czech Republic (73.33%). Our research, which was significantly more extensive than presented in this article, demonstrates that the intensity of interest in the socio-economic system is relatively low and students are not adequately motivated to be proactive. Therefore, we propose to create more room for intense use of advanced teaching methods in order to improve application skills of students. In this context, it is necessary to focus on promotion of personal initiative among the students. © 2016, Centre of Sociological Research. All rights reserved.