Three years ago, The Edge Education Foundation (TEEF), the charity arm of The Edge, launched a financial literacy programme for secondary school students as a corporate responsibility initiative.

Designed by TEEF, the “Money & Me: Youth Financial Empowerment Programme” is approved as a co-curricular programme by the Ministry of Education. It is funded by Citi Foundation and carried out in collaboration with partners from the private sector and NGOs.

From just five schools and 96 participants at its launch in 2016, the programme grew to eight schools and over 140 participants in 2017. This year, the foundation expanded the programme further to 14 schools with some 340 students taking part. The number of partners has also grown in tandem, from five in 2016 to 12 this year.

Money & Me targets Form 4 students from the B40 (bottom 40% of households with a monthly income of RM3,900 and below) group by teaching them financial literacy as a life skill. It also introduces participants to basic entrepreneurship skills to help them improve their economic prospects if they do not, or are unable to, go on to post-

secondary education or training (Ministry of Higher Education data show that of some 450,000 SPM graduates in 2014, only about 250,000 or 55% went on to some form of tertiary education).

Money & Me, which is conducted in English,  is based on five modules that teach about saving, spending, earning, growing (wealth) and giving. The lessons are carried out as part of co-curricular activities in schools by volunteers who are staff or students of our partner organisations comprising BHP, Citibank, Deloitte, EY, GE, INTI International College Subang and INTI International University at Nilai, KLK Oleo, Methodist College Kuala Lumpur, PwC, and the Rotary Clubs of Sentul and Central Damansara. At two of the 14 schools, teachers facilitate three of the modules and INTI students facilitate the remaining two.

Among the important lessons that participants learn are that saving should come before spending (“pay yourself first”), differentiating between needs and wants, budgeting, credit cards, and even what to look out for in hire purchase schemes.

Participants also learn how to create a simple business plan together with a budget and marketing plan. They are then required to implement the plan during “Sales Day”. Sales Day is a test not just of participants’ ability to make or offer saleable products and services but of their ability to communicate and market their products/services to potential customers.

In the first two years of the programme, Sales Day was held at a mall. This year, Sales Day was held at the respective schools and the 39 teams made some RM30,900 in sales. In terms of average sales per team, it worked out to about RM800 each. What may be more important than the revenue earned, however, is that participants get exposed to entrepreneurship.

In addition to equipping participants with financial literacy and basic entrepreneurship skills, the programme also led to positive changes in self-esteem and improved communication skills. Interviews with principals and teachers showed that some participants were far more confident when it came to speaking in English. Money & Me also requires participants to learn teamwork and collaboration, which are important skills in the workplace, and develops their confidence in being able to successfully carry out a small business project from start to finish — something that schools do not teach.

We are very pleased that the Money & Me programme is gaining traction in schools. At the same time, we are also excited to see a version of Money & Me being carried out among youths in a correctional centre. Last year, TEEF partnered Malaysian Care, a local NGO, to pilot a Bahasa Malaysia version of the Money & Me programme for juveniles, the majority of whom are aged 18 to 21, at Sekolah Integriti Kajang in Kajang Prison. The project was launched in August 2017 with an initial intake of 25 students. Using the Money & Me syllabus, Malaysian Care customised the lessons, taking into account the juveniles’ background and circumstances. The lessons, which take place over a three-month period, are facilitated by Malaysian Care staff and volunteers.

Malaysian Care recently concluded the programme for a second batch of 19 students at PKPA or Pusat Koreksional Puncak Alam (Puncak Alam Correctional Centre), where the juvenile correctional centre at Kajang Prison has relocated to.

Some juveniles are released before they complete the PKPA-Money & Me programme and Malaysian Care is working to improve the retention rate by strengthening the selection process with the help of the PKPA authority.

For both the Money & Me programme in schools and at PKPA, a pre- and post-programme assessment of participants is conducted to measure impact. The improvement in financial literacy scores among 12 of the 14 schools this year ranged from one percentage point for an urban school that started off with a high base to 14 percentage points for a school in Lembah Keramat in Kuala Lumpur. Asked if they had been saving money since the beginning of the year, half of the participants said they were saving money in their savings accounts; 34% said they were saving cash at home or in their wallets; and another 11% said they were giving money to family to save on their behalf. Only 5% said they had not been actively saving.

The scores for PKPA showed an improvement in four out of 13 students who took both the pre- and post-programme assessment (for PKPA, the assessment tool has been changed to be more “juvenile-friendly”). While progress is challenging, anecdotal evidence indicates that the programme is having an impact.

“I learnt about saving and differentiating between needs and wants. Before, I would straightaway spend without thinking. Now, I think first before spending,” said Fairus (not his real name), aged 20, a former PKPA student.

“This programme is very relevant to the boys in PKPA, especially when they are released and begin employment. One boy told me that for the first time in his life, he was able to purchase a gift for his family from his own savings from work,” said Frederick Foo, assistant director of service development at Malaysian Care and also a facilitator for PKPA-Money & Me.

Malaysian Care is targeting 30 students for the third batch of students for the programme starting in mid-January next year.

Teaching young people — not just ex-juvenile offenders but secondary school students — financial literacy and introducing them to the basics of entrepreneurship is crucial in preparing them for life outside the prison and school walls.

Khazanah Research Institute’s recently-released School-to-Work Transition Survey (SWTS) notes that young Malaysians aged 15 to 24 face difficulties in making the transition from schools and training institutions into decent jobs, and they account for 56.4% of the country’s total unemployed of over 500,000 in 2017. Youths from poor backgrounds cannot afford not to work and are often forced to accept low-paying jobs.

Our hope is that by teaching them financial literacy skills and introducing them to the basics of entrepreneurship, Money & Me alumni, whether in the school programme or PKPA, will be better equipped to make a decent living.


Dorothy Teoh is the CEO of The Edge Education Foundation. If your company is interested in participating in the Money & Me programme in schools or at PKPA, please e-mail [email protected] or go to www.moneyandme.com.my for more information.