Tech and Human Trafficking
Event
Transformational Education Interventions: Insights from the United Kingdom and Kuwait
This event will address three key questions on transformational education initiatives, drawing on insights from the United Kingdom and Kuwait
Register
There is a growing global consensus on the need for financial literacy interventions in schools to provide children and young people with the skills to make good financial decisions. In the United Kingdom, there have been campaigns for financial education to be introduced as a compulsory part of the primary curriculum. Research commissioned by the banking app GoHenry found that prioritising financial education would inject an extra £6.98 billion into the British economy each year. In the Middle East and North Africa, average financial literacy falls slightly below the world average at 30.07% and in a 2018 survey by Visa and the Al Etihad Credit Bureau, 43% of young adults (aged 16 to 24) in the UAE admitted that they are not ready to manage their own finances. In Kuwait, a survey from 2018 shows that while the level of financial literacy there is higher than in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the general level of understanding of basic financial concepts remains low. Notably, the Central Bank of Kuwait has set out guidelines to enhance financial inclusion and literacy in the country.
Through a collaboration between NatCen International, the global arm of the National Centre for Social Research, Creative Confidence Consultancy and Training Institute (CCCTI), and the National Bank of Kuwait (NBK), this event will feature the launch of the findings of an ambitious one-year evaluation of the Bankee Programme, a financial literacy intervention targeting primary school children in Kuwait. The findings reflect on the process of adapting an international financial literacy intervention to the Kuwaiti context and the extent to which it has improved the financial literacy, financial behaviour, and overall wellbeing of primary school pupils in both public and private schools in the country. The findings provide reflections on good practice, opportunities and challenges for similar interventions in Kuwait.
Additionally, the event will address three key questions on transformational education initiatives, drawing on insights from the United Kingdom and Kuwait:
- How can financial literacy programmes be effectively embedded in school education across different social, economic and cultural contexts? What are the practical challenges and opportunities?
- What are the lessons learned from financial literacy programmes in the United Kingdom and Kuwait?
- What are the opportunities and challenges in the development of public-private partnerships to strengthen financial literacy in education?
Please indicate your interest by completing the registration form and we will respond to you shortly to confirm your attendance.
Chair
-
Sherine El Taraboulsi–McCarthyDirector, NatCen International National Centre for Social Research
Sherine is the Director of NatCen International where she leads a team of senior experts and researchers dedicated to shaping global social policy and practice. She is widely acknowledged as an expert in humanitarian and development policy, conflict, security and evidence uptake with a focus on the UK, Africa and the Middle East. Sherine has two decades of experience in leading and delivering on complex research projects and consortia as well as providing policy advice at a senior level to governments, donors and civil society organizations on their engagement in fragile and conflict-affected contexts.
Prior to establishing NatCen International, Sherine was a Senior Research Fellow at ODI where she launched and co-led a cross-institutional initiative on peace and sustainability in the Mediterranean region. Earlier in her career, she set up a research unit on regional philanthropy and civic engagement at the American University in Cairo. Sherine has held fellowships at Keble College at the University of Oxford, the Department of Asia, Africa and the Mediterranean at the University of Naples ‘L’Orientale’ and the King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies in Saudi Arabia. She has also been a guest lecturer at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and Cranfield University in England as well as the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies in Qatar. Her work can be found in the International Review of the Red Cross, the Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of the Middle East, Development in Practice as well as book chapters in edited volumes with Palgrave Macmillan and James Currey. Sherine sits on the Board of Trustees of Protection Approaches, a UK charity dedicated to combatting identity-based violence in the UK and globally.
Sherine holds a DPhil from the Department of International Development and St. Cross College at the University of Oxford.
