Nearly 7,000 high school students from 30 provinces have participated during this school year in the 12th Conference on Financial Education for Young People, organized by Unicaja’s Edufinet Project, a programme promoted by Unicaja Banco and Fundación Unicaja to provide secondary education and baccalaureate students with a clear view of the economic and financial world. This year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the lectures have been online.
This edition, which started in October and which ends now, has included nearly 220 lectures held in educational centres in Andalusia, Castilla y León, Castilla-La Mancha, Madrid, Extremadura, Aragón, Canarias, Cantabria, Cataluña, Comunidad Valenciana, Galicia, Islas Baleares, La Rioja, Navarra, Principado de Asturias and Región de Murcia.
New features this year have included the incorporation of centres from Arnedo, Asturias, Barcelona, Castellón, Huesca, La Coruña, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Mallorca, Murcia, Pamplona, Santander and Zaragoza. In total, this initiative has registered 115,000 participants in its 12 editions.
The goal of this initiative is to teach young people the basics about economics and finance, with special focus on the different financial products and services that they use or will use in the future, and with concepts such as family budget, financial system and saving and financing products, for instance. All of the above, analysing the aspects to take into account when making a decision and considering its implications and consequences.
As a supplement to the lectures, schools have at their disposal optional contents, such as information on insurance and investment products, entrepreneurship, digital transformation and sustainable finance.
Financial Olympics
The 12th Financial Olympics, a competition to show the knowledge acquired, are linked to these conferences, and its final will be held online on 28 May.
The Edufinet Project has been available through an Internet portal aimed at the general public since the end of 2007, although its development started in 2005. In addition to more than ten institutions and business organizations, 16 universities participate in this programme. All of the previous have made Unicaja -one of the first financial institutions in Spain to launch an initiative of this kind- to be one of the most active agents in the fields of financial education and inclusion, in the exercise of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and its commitment to society.
With regard to the website www.edufinet.com, it has received more than nine million visits, with consults and access from around 180 countries. Edufinet offers two other portals with specific contents: one on financial education for young people (Edufinext) and another one business owners and entrepreneurs (Edufiemp).
The Edufinet website also includes other sections such as Edufiblog, EdufiAcademics, EdufiTech and a videogame, as well as YouToube channel and accounts on Facebook and Twitter.