Syllabus Level of Imparting Personal Financial Literacy Based on Jumpstart Standards

Table 1 provides the details’ analysis of Jumpstart coalition standards benchmarked by the contents of Tanzania primary, secondary and advanced secondary schools financial related subjects’ syllabus. The analysis is based on the detailed contents of these subjects and the extent it can impart personal financial knowledge to the learner in light of jumpstart standards.
The results indicate that; primary school level with learners at the age interval of 7-14 years (Bommier & Lambert, 2000) are not taught any subject related to personal financial understanding in the formal curriculum. It is only in the subject of mathematics where they learn about basic calculations which might be helpful in their future financial analysis. It is clearly that at this age interval children in Tanzania are denied the right to financial knowledge. And at this age the children typically get some clues about money through other experiential means or being informally informed by either family and/or other members of the society. This is a critical issue considering this is primary foundational level, the situation may be adding to the prevalence of financial illiteracy in all age intervals. When children are denied any hint about money at this
age the preferential and the importance of valuing financial information in their lifetime is hampered.
In secondary school with children of 14-18 years it is where the education system introduces financial related subjects. These subjects are commerce, bookkeeping and part of mathematics. The jumpstart standards evaluation of the courses display the results. Mathematics subjects somehow impart personal financial literacy by 27%, the topics contents doesn’t directly impart personal financial knowledge at all, and 73% of this subject doesn’t impart financial literacy. These scores in mathematics subject may be so because it is not a financial core subject. Commerce as one of the core financial subject directly impart financial literacy by 23%, somehow by 65% and 12% of the contents has nothing to do with personal financial development of the learners. The other core subject is bookkeeping, and this one impart financial knowledge directly by 38%, somehow by 54% and the 8% of the subject is not related to personal financial development of the learner. The two core financial related subjects of bookkeeping and commerce has average financial knowledge directly imparting effect of 30.5% which is below half the subjects. However, these two subjects are not mandatorily taught in all schools. They are only core subjects in business oriented schools and other schools are at liberty to choose whether to teach or not. Therefore, such a lower percentage of imparting financial knowledge, still the knowledge is only enjoyed by few luck children who may go up to university to meet their financial related subjects in the system.
The advanced secondary school education syllabus with learners of age averaging on the interval of 17-20 years has 4 subjects which are deemed to be related to impartation of financial literacy. These subjects are mathematics, commerce, economics and accountancy. The results from the jumpstart standard comparison shows the subject of mathematics doesn’t direct impart financial knowledge to the learner, 19% somehow impart financial knowledge and 81% of the Contents is not related to personal financial capability development. Commerce which is one of the core financial related subjects doesn’t directly impart financial literacy but somehow impart financial knowledge by 73% and the rest of percentage doesn’t relate to personal financial development. Accountancy directly impart financial knowledge by 27% and somehow impart by 61% and the 125 is not related to personal financial development. Economics syllabus contents at this level doesn’t impart directly impart financial knowledge but is somehow impart by 27% and 73% of the contents is not related to personal financial development. At this level students learn three combination core subjects and the only combinations that combine three core subjects is ECA (Economics, commerce and accountancy). The rest of the combination can have 1 or no financial related subject in their study. Therefore, the financial related core courses again are studied by very few students in schools which offer such combinations. The rest of the students may go without any financial related course up the radar.
Mabula and Ping 5Table 1. Tanzania Primary and secondary school financial subjects’ syllabus on the eye of Jumpstart standards