Gaidar Institute organized a discussion of the project on implementation of the program on improving financial literacy

Involved in the project are the Faculty of Economics of the Moscow State University (MSU), the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, as well as the consortium of HSE, RANEPA, and the Gaidar Institute. MSU Faculty of Economics is responsible for the creation of the Federal Resource Center for advanced training of college and university lecturers, as well as for the development of programs on improving financial literacy of students. The Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation is responsible for the creation of a regional network of resource centers for the training of methodology experts and counselors to improve the financial literacy of the population, as well as for the creation of teaching aids for the counselors. The consortium (HSE, RANEPA, and the Gaidar Institute) co-ordinates the establishing of resource centers for school teachers’ training and the development of the programs on financial literacy education for schoolchildren.

In accordance with the described activities, the discussion of the project was split into three sessions. In the first session, deputy dean of MSU Faculty of Economics Sergey Trukhachev talked about the mechanism of creation and functioning of the Federal Resource Center for advanced training of college and university lecturers. He said that within that project, it is planned to train 500 lecturers fr om 9 participating regions. The program is designed to improve the qualification of lecturers in economics who lecture at non-economic colleges or universities or to students who major in fields other than economics. Trukhachev noted that there is a plan to create a portal for academic interaction wh ere, among other things, training materials and textbooks will be made available. In order to improve students' motivation, new information technologies and online resources will be considered during the training, as well as gamification of the learning process. Among other issues discussed in this session were the choice of higher education institutions for the program, the selection of 500 teachers, the mechanisms and schemes of interaction among the Federal Resource Center, regional coordinators, and partner higher education institutions.

In the second session, leading expert of the Institute of Financial Planning Sergey Makarov talked about the specifics of the implementation of the program on improving financial literacy. According to him, resource centers for the training of methodology experts and counselors to improve the financial literacy of the population will be set up in 9 regions. The plan is to train about 200 counselors in course of the project. Also discussed were the problem of choosing the counselors, the questions of their accreditation and monitoring their work. The question of which category of the population the program is aimed at was preliminarily addressed as well.

In the third session, HSE professor Nikolay Berzon described the stages of the implementation of the training program for lecturers of secondary professional education institutions. As he said, resource centers for lecturers’ training will be set up in the regions in the next four months; besides, developing of the programs on professional training of teachers is also planned. He specified that the process of lecturers’ training is expected to start in August 2016 — pilot workshops will be held in Kaliningrad and Volgograd. In September and October 2016, workshops in the other 7 regions are planned. In November 2016, a massive teachers' training is to start.