News & Event

The Financial Culture Symposium, organized by the Ministry of Education, represented by the KhaznaProject, kicked off start at Kempinski Al Mouj Hotel under the slogan “Towards School Students Awareness of Financial Culture Principles.” The official opening ceremony was held under the auspices of HE Dr. Said bin Mohammed Al Saqri, Minister of Economy, in the presence of HE Dr. Madiha bint Ahmed Al Shaibaniyah, Minister of Education, and a number of Their Highnesses, Excellencies, honorees, as well as the Directors-General of the Ministry’s General Diwan and the educational directorates in the governorates.

The symposium is held with wide participation of experts and specialists from international and Arab organizations, the Central Bank of Oman, banking sector institutions, and other relevant ministries and institutions, with the aim of highlighting the role of education in developing awareness of financial culture among school students, and benefiting from international and regional experiences that have adopted financial culture to support sustainable development in building a clear strategy for financial education in the Sultanate of Oman, in line with Oman Vision 2040, which stressed the need to focus on spreading awareness about financial culture among school students, and preparing a generation capable of keeping pace with current economic developments, and adapting to them in the future.

The ceremony began with the Ministry’s speechdelivered by Dr. Suleiman bin Abdullah Al-Jamoudi, Director-General of the Directorate-General of Curriculum Development, in which he stressed that the symposium comes as a continuation of the Ministry’s efforts to spread financial culture since the Ministerial Resolution No. (67/2023) was issued to establish a project to instill the principles of financial culture among school students (Khazna Project) in cooperation with banks operating in the Sultanate of Oman and under the umbrella of the Central Bank of Oman and related financial institutions. The project aims to achieve many goals, including spreading awareness among school students in everything related to financial culture.

The attendees then watched a visual presentation on the Ministry’s efforts in financial culture, and a presentation of the “Financial Harvests” of the “Maliyat” Academy program implemented by the project in cooperation with Bank Muscat. Then, the keynote speaker of the symposium, Andreas Schleicher, Director of Learning and Skills at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, presented a working paper in which he highlighted the importance of financial culture, reviewing the results of the international study to evaluate student outcomes in the (PISA Program), which measures the extent of students’ knowledge of financial basics. The paper discussed the statistical analyses in detail, explaining the importance of financial culture among students, and stressed that financial skills are not an option, but rather a necessity that students need to achieve their successes in life.

On this occasion, HE Majid bin Said Al Bahri, Undersecretary of the Ministry for Administrative and Financial Affairs, stressed on the importance of implementing the symposium, which stems from the importance of instilling the principles of financial culture among school students, and the Ministry of Education’s keenness to raise awareness of it as one of the requirements of sustainable development in its various social and economic aspects; which is followed by reaching the highest level of productive, cultural and educational efficiency in school education, and in line with Oman Vision 2040, which stressed the need to focus on spreading awareness about financial culture among school students.

After the official opening of the symposium, HE Majid bin Said Al Bahri, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education for Administrative and Financial Affairs and Chairman of the Main Committee for Organizing the Financial Culture Symposium, patronized the opening of the exhibition accompanying the symposium, which includes students’ creativity and highlights their achievements in the field of financial culture. The exhibition includes five knowledge villages: Khazna, Little Trader, Smart Investor, Artificial Intelligence, Outputs of the Gulf Student Forum on Financial Culture, in addition to the Banking Village and a Financial Culture Studio.

The symposium is also accompanied by holding of (12) training sessions for school students from educational stages (1-12), presented by a group of experts and specialists in enhancing financial awareness, as well as accompanying activities in the educational directorates in the governorates, and student visits to banking institutions in the second day of the symposium.

The symposium discusses a set of topics through various working papers for each topic on financial culture in education in order to achieve sustainable development goals. It reviews models of international and regional experiences, shows the importance of integrating financial culture into school education programs, and its role in creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship, and touches on the role of financial technology in promoting financial culture.

A number of working papers were presented in the sessions of the first day. The first session was moderated by HH Sayyid Dr. Adham bin Turki Al Said, Assistant Professor at the College of Economics and Political Science at Sultan Qaboos University. During the session, (4) working papers were presented, the first of which was titled “The Importance of Understanding Financial Culture and Its Effects on the Lives of Individuals and Societies” and was presented by Haitham Al Salmi, CEO of the Stock Exchange. The paper addressed the importance of financial culture and means of improving it, in addition to addressing some basic financial concepts such assaving, investment, financial planning and its steps.

The second paper was presented by Samah Shalaby, an education policy specialist at the UNESCO Institute for International Development (UID) in Germany, where she spoke about the importance of integrating financial culture into all educational methods and touched on UNESCO’s practices in applying financial culture in education to reduce inequalities and build a sustainable future.

The third paper, presented by Ayman Al Shanfari, Director-General of the Omani Securities Association, dealt with the mechanisms and procedures necessary to activate financial culture in school education, including preparing appropriate curricula for grades (1-12), training teachers, and evaluating performance and results.

The fourth paper was presented by Arwa Al-Zaabi, a behavioral economics specialist, in which she pointed out how behavioral economics can help those in charge of the education system in creating interventions in the form of projects that target changing financial behavior and providing more realistic and behavioral frameworks for measuring the level of financial culture among education categories and its various stages.

In the second session, which was moderated by HE Dr. Abdulaziz bin Rashid Al Hashemi, member of the Shura Council (Economic and Financial Committee), included (5) working papers.

The first paper was about the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s experience in financial culture, presented by Dr. Abdullah bin Saleh Al-Anzi, Advisor at the National Center for Curricula in KSA. In his paper, he presented the Kingdom’s efforts through curricula to develop students’ capabilities from an early age to become more aware of potential financial risks and opportunities.

In the second paper, Kaltham Al-Abdullah, a curriculum specialist at the Ministry of Education in Qatar, reviewed the most prominent efforts made by the State of Qatar to enhance financial culture in curricula and various educational programs in cooperation with a number of community partnerships.

The third paper dealt with the experience of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, where Dr. Jihan Arifij, supervisor and educational researcher, spoke about the Jordanian experience, and explained the origin and development of teaching the financial culture curriculum and the most prominent features of development, referring to the national program for financial education in schools as a basic pillar of the Jordanian national strategy.

In the fourth paper, Eduard Studecker from the Republic of Austria reviewed his country’s experience in financial literacy, and highlighted Austria’s participation in the PISA international study for international student assessment of financial literacy, where Austria achieved the highest averages in the OECD and the European Union in student financial literacy.

The experience of the Republic of Finland was reviewed in the fifth paper, presented by Mita Ranta and Nina Pantinen. The presentation dealt with the basic curricula for primary, lower secondary and upper secondary education in Finland, as financial education in Finnish schools is vital for implementing the national strategy for financial education.