Nationwide Financial Literacy Competition Launched

MoneyTime, one of the top financial literacy programs in New Zealand schools, has launched its inaugural Interclass Financial Literacy Competition.

The competition enables classes to showcase their financial literacy skills and compete against each other nationwide for the title of Best Financial Literacy Class in New Zealand.

Neil Edmond, CEO of MoneyTime, says he is excited to have launched the competition at a time when both the Labour and National parties have vowed to make financial literacy compulsory in schools.

“Our program has been available to New Zealand schools for five years now and we wanted to elevate its appeal and effectiveness by adding a competitive element,” Edmond says.

“We surveyed teachers around the country, and they were generally very supportive of a competition.

The goal is to motivate students to improve their understanding of personal finance and foster a sense of healthy competition among classes,” Edmond says.

The competition is available to all schools with Year 6-10 students. “They could be a small rural school, a large suburban school, a Year 6 class or a Year 10 class” he says. 

“Either way, there’s an extra incentive for classes to do well as the top four classes will win a total of $6,500 in cash prizes for their school.”

The cash prizes are sponsored by the Milford Foundation, MoneyTime’s cornerstone sponsor.

“We greatly appreciate the long-standing support we’ve had from the Milford Foundation and our other sponsors in our efforts to promote financial literacy as a vital life skill for all Kiwi children,” Edmond says.

“The more young people know about money growing up, the less stressed and more prosperous they are likely to be as adults.”

MoneyTime teaches financial literacy in 31 fun, interactive modules, with each module having a multi-choice quiz at the end. Scores for participating classes are based on the students’ average quiz scores and the percentage of students completing all 31 modules in their class.

To be eligible for the competition prizes, a class must have a minimum of five students successfully complete the program before 5 December 2023.