Thursday 28 Mar 2024
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This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on December 6, 2021 - December 12, 2021

DESPITE Covid-19, which led to the closure of schools and lessons moving online, The Edge Education Foundation (TEEF) managed to run its free financial literacy programme for Form 4 students for a fifth year.

The six-month programme ended successfully with a virtual prize-giving event on Nov 27.

This year, 114 students from nine schools in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor took part in the “Money & Me: Youth Financial Empowerment Programme”.  This co-curricular programme for Form 4 students was designed and launched by TEEF in 2016 with the support of Citi Foundation at five schools. It ran consecutively for four years until 2020 when it was interrupted by the pandemic.

In addition to teaching the importance of saving, “Money & Me” also teaches basic entrepreneurship skills including coming up with a simple business plan, budgeting, project management and social media marketing.

In past years, students have had to implement their business plans on “Sales Day”, a one-day or half-day event at schools where students set up booths to sell their wares to their schoolmates and teachers. From 2016 to 2019, Money & Me participants netted a total of RM96,396 from Sales Day. Sales Day was not carried out this year because of the virus.

“Money & Me teaches participants not just how to make money but also to give back. Participants have donated almost RM20,000 to charity since 2016,” said TEEF CEO Dorothy Teoh at the online prize-giving event.

Teoh thanked Money & Me partners and teachers who had contributed to the success of the programme this year. Employees of partner organisations and teachers at participating schools take turns to teach the five modules (Save, Spend, Earn, Grow and Give) via Google Classroom while the students follow along on their devices.

A high percentage of the participants are from B40 homes and most use their handphones not just for Money & Me but also for their class lessons, as they do not have computers. According to teachers at participating schools, the lack of PCs, limited data plans and unstable internet connections as well as online fatigue were among the challenges that the programme faced this year. As several teachers noted, after at least five hours of online lessons, students were already tired and getting them to attend another 1½ hours of a co-curricular programme was a challenge.

Still, the 94 volunteers from eight Money & Me partners comprising Baker Hughes, BHP, Deloitte, EY, GE, INTI International University, PwC and the Rotary Club of Sentul as well as 30 teachers involved in the programme overcame the challenges and ended the programme successfully at the nine schools with the Money & Me Young Entrepreneurs Challenge. The challenge required students to form teams and submit their business plan, budget, organisational chart, project timeline and a 30-second Instagram marketing video.

The first prize was won by SKUSES Photolicious from SMK Seri Kundang, while C-19 Handy Care Kit from SMK Puchong Perdana and BungaLukis from SMK Sungai Pusu won the second and third prizes respectively. Their business ideas had to do with Polaroid printing (Photolicious), a Covid-19 care kit with one item being a cloth mask embroidered with the school name to be sold at the school bookshop and co-op store (C-19), and bread and pastries in handmade baskets (BungaLukis).

The teams received prize money sponsored by The Edge Education Foundation of RM3,000, RM2,000 and RM1,000 for first, second and third place respectively. Each team was allowed up to 10 members.

Shopee sponsored about RM2,500 in vouchers for the best student in the programme from each of the nine schools, prizes for a quiz held as part of the prize-giving as well as tokens of appreciation for teachers and volunteers.

 

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