Tailored financial literacy education: An indigenous perspective

Governments around the world agree that financial literacy education (FLE) is of the utmost importance, with the current economic times having led to a ‘teachable moment’ for financial education. However, caution should be taken when viewing education as the sole solution to the world’s economic problems as there is little evidence to support a causal link between FLE and financial behaviour/decision making. Furthermore, others conclude that FLE is not a single, value-neutral curriculum, and thus current approaches must recognise gender and cultural differences. This article examines the usefulness of mainstream FLE programmes adapted to suit Indigenous communities in terms of the delivery model, the content and the logistics of the programmes. This is achieved by examining the outcomes of four FLE programmes run in Indigenous communities and explores the need for diverse approaches to be applied to FLE in this context. We find that contextualised FLE based on an experiential group-learning model provides self-reported benefits to the participants. We also report on a range of practical issues that arise in Indigenous FLE. Finally, we recommend the exploration of sustainable FLE based on these principles.