A trio of Nelson College budding entrepreneurs wish to deposit financial knowledge for young bucks to become savvy with the almighty dollar.
Year 13 students Matt Donald, Rore Morgan and Hunter Kendrick have joined forces for the Young Enterprise Scheme [YES] to create a financial literacy card game titled Savvy Spenders.
Matt, who is also this year’s Head Boy, says through researching for an idea for a [YES] business, they discovered there was a low sum of basic financial literacy being taught, particularly to young people.
“We found, in school we’re taught how to count money, but we’re not taught how to actually use it,” he says.
“So we’re really trying to help students to learn basic concepts around financial literacy like learning what tax is, learning what rates are, what banks do and how central government uses your money.”
Matt says he and his business partners conducted online, social media and Nelson College surveys earlier this year to rake in feedback for their idea.
“We found from their feedback they really thought there was a serious deprivation of financial literacy taught in our schools and thought our product could be viable in delivering those financial literacy concepts, so that students find a way to make good financial decisions,” he says.
Matt says they chose to create a “fun and interactive” card game instead of an online learning tool, since it would allow individuals to pay more attention.
“Each card has a new numerical value and then the harder the questions get, the more value the cards have,” he says.
“Students are allowed to sit round in a circle where a person reads out the question like a dealer, but we call it the banker here. It’s in ABC style and if you get the question right you get the card and the value, and at the end of the game people count up their numbers, which is another form of learning financial concepts, and the highest number wins.”
Matt says they’ll roll out their card game promotions in the coming weeks once it has been printed and priced.
“We are really trying to get it into every school in the Nelson, Tasman and Marlborough region, and from there, pending a review on how it has gone, to get it into other secondary schools around the country,” he says.
“We also invite people from the Nelson community to reach out to us and get involved, we’re really keen to partner with Nelson companies or anyone who thinks our idea is possibly a winner.”
Matt says a te reo Māori version of Savvy Spenders was also on the cards and that they plan to present their idea to the Ministry of Education with hopes it would invest their product in the New Zealand curriculum.
Contact matt.donald@nc.school.nz to be part of the Savvy Spenders journey.
