Kanchi Uttamchandani | Assistant News Editor
Featured image: With millions of Canadians claiming little to no knowledge of financial literacy, the topic will now be incorporated into Ontario school’s curriculums. | Victoria Fung
Only one quarter of Ontario students say their high school provided them with an adequate financial education, according to an Investor Education Fund study. To fix this problem, York alumnus Prakash Amarasooriya has made national news, as Ontario’s government approved his petition to include financial literacy lessons in high school classrooms.
Amarasooriya is pushing for grassroots-level change in the education system to fix the gap between theoretical classroom knowledge and practical life skills.
“While the province says they disperse financial education across grades four to 12, I believe that putting it into one course is more effective because students can have a space to have their money questions answered, as well as have teachers trained properly on how to deliver the material,” he says.
Youth, parents and teachers have heartily supported Amarasooriya’s initiative. Before launching the petition, Amarasooriya and his colleagues approached Ontario’s Ministry of Education to examine their proposal.
“We met with some of their curriculum advisors, who thought that they were doing a great job with the [grade 10] Careers course already. Unfortunately, the general public does not agree with that assessment,” he says.
“We launched the petition to put public pressure on the government. Our strategy was that media and public exposure to our idea would hopefully get the Ministry to see why this was heavily needed,” he adds.
As the petition gained traction and attracted broad public support, the Ministry invited Amarasooriya to discuss it with Minister of Education Mitzie Hunter, who expressed support for the idea.
Following the meeting, the Ministry published a press release stating that they have accepted the proposal and will include financial literacy in the grade 10 Careers course.
The city’s youth cabinet members will be meeting with the Ministry in a few weeks to discuss next steps. They maintain that while they are happy that the Ministry accepted their proposal, they want to ensure that the specific topics addressed in their proposal are actually implemented into the curriculum.
“It usually takes three to four years for a course’s curriculum to be updated. However, because Careers is already in review, the Ministry has told us that they would expedite the process,’’ says Amarasooriya.
He asserts that they want to do justice to the people who supported the petition, especially the youth who wanted to have their voice heard on how they would like their education to be conducted.
