Financial Education Standards Revised After 10 Years... Strengthening Digital and Consumer Protection

Policy to Revise Financial Education Textbooks and Teaching Guides

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyo-jin] The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) announced on the 22nd that it has revised the "Elementary, Middle, and High School Financial Education Standards" for the first time in 10 years, in collaboration with the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation, in response to changes in the financial environment and educational curriculum conditions.

Since the introduction of the standards in 2010, the FSS has prioritized digital finance and financial consumer protection amid the development of digital finance and the normalization of financial crises, establishing and strengthening related achievement criteria.

Additionally, through expert surveys on the validity and appropriateness of existing achievement criteria, the FSS finalized 5 major domains, 12 sub-domains, and 86 achievement criteria.

It was explained that the achievement criteria were organized to enhance practical financial competencies by consolidating overlapping content, adjusting the order of placement to ensure organic linkage among criteria, and comprehensively considering students' developmental stages and life experiences.

Accordingly, learning content such as the importance of personal information protection, methods for financial consumer protection and accident prevention, responsibility in credit use, advantages and disadvantages of loans, and the necessity and methods of retirement planning were reinforced.

The FSS also selected 25 core achievement criteria containing the minimum financial education content, considering the reality that sufficient class time for financial education is difficult to allocate.

The FSS expects that by providing educational standards that meet the changed educational conditions through this revision, it will contribute to the revitalization and substantial improvement of financial education, and that more systematic financial education will be conducted in frontline educational settings, greatly helping to strengthen students' financial competencies.

To promote widespread use of the revised standards, the FSS plans to develop a casebook that guides specific teaching examples based on the revised standards for teachers and instructors, and will also revise the six financial education textbooks and guides currently used as standard financial education materials.

Furthermore, the FSS intends to use the revised standards as reference materials for expressing opinions to the Ministry of Education to ensure their incorporation into the national curriculum during future curriculum reforms.