The new government will be sworn-in today by the Governor General, and the Prime Minister and his cabinet will immediately get back to business.

First on the agenda is the Speech from the Throne on December 5, which will outline the goals and priorities for the new session of Parliament.

One major test for the new government will be passing the annual budget and, with a minority government, they will have to negotiate to secure support from the other parties.

Canadian students need to be part of this important conversation too, as its their future that’s at stake in these decisions.

Coordinated by CIVIX, the Student Budget Consultation is a unique classroom program that provides students with an opportunity to learn about budgeting, explore the federal government’s revenues and expenditures, debate important issues, and share their budget priorities with decision-makers.

Registration is open now: http://studentvote.ca/federal_sbc/

The project learning resources will include lesson plans, along with videos and slide decks. We are in the process of streamlining the content from previous years and making it more digestible.In the culminating activity, students will submit their feedback through a consultation survey. The results will be shared with the Department of Finance and all political parties so that they can see what matters most to young Canadians in advance of the 2020 budget.
 
We hope you will consider involving your students in this civic education initiative. 

HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS ON BUDGET 2019: CONFIDENT ABOUT JOB PROSPECTS, BUT CONCERNED WITH EDUCATION, THE ENVIRONMENT AND POVERTY

Canada’s high school students, the next generation of taxpayers, have provided their insight and opinions on the major issues likely to feature in Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s fourth federal budget.

Notably, the top issues students believe the government should focus on are education, the environment, poverty, crime and gun control, and fiscal responsibility. Students believe that making post-secondary education more affordable and accessible is key to their future success and economic well-being. At the same time, a majority want the federal government to commit to debt reduction. Although students are split on whether the financial situations of their families have improved since the election of the Liberal government in 2015, students are increasingly positive about their future and job prospects.

For the sixth time, high school students from across the country participated in the Student Budget Consultation, a national initiative coordinated by CIVIX aimed at engaging youth in the federal government’s pre-budget consultation process.

More than 8,000 high school students, from more than 550 schools throughout the country, took part in the 2019 Student Budget Consultation.

On Budget Day (March 19), a group of participating students will attend the Budget Speech in the House of Commons gallery as special guests of the Minister of Finance.

Major points of interest include:

• Ranking major issues – When asked to rank the issues the federal government should focus on, students selected education, the environment and poverty as their top three concerns.
• Current and Future Outlooks – Students are unsure of whether their families’ financial situations have improved over the last 3 years, but they are overwhelmingly confident in their own future job prospects.
• The environment – There is clear support for protecting the environment, but students are somewhat divided on government funding for the oil and gas industry and are neutral on the issue of a federally imposed carbon tax.
• Education – Students believe that the best ways for the government to help families and youth are by making post-secondary education more affordable and by managing student debt.
• Taxation – Students believe that wealthy people have a greater financial obligation than everyone else to help those in need. However, students are divided when it comes to raising the corporate tax rate and do not support high-income tax rates that exceed 25 per cent.
• Fiscal responsibility – Students want the government to lower taxes, even if this means less government services. They also believe that the government should do more to address tax evasion.
• The media – Half of students are neutral to government support for struggling private media companies. Half of students reported that they get their news from social media and may therefore be less exposed to, or reliant on, traditional news media.
• Trade – Students are divided on what the main focus of Canada’s free trade agreements should be, but are opposed to trading with countries that have records of human rights abuse.
• Defence – Students are split on the issue of defence spending and do not consider national defence to be a high priority.

To view an info-graphic of the results highlights, click here.

To view the complete results report, click here.

To view a map of participating schools, click here.

About the Student Budget Consultation

The Student Budget Consultation provides youth with an opportunity to learn about the government’s revenues and expenditures, discuss important political issues and suggested policies, and offer their insights on the priorities of the federal budget. The opinions of students are collected through a survey and the results are shared with the federal Department of Finance and with all federal political parties so that they can see what matters to young Canadians in advance of the 2019 federal election.

The 2019 Student Budget Consultation was organized by CIVIX with the support of the Government of Canada.

The 2019 Student Budget Consultation survey was conducted in partnership with Vox Pop Labs between November 2018 and March 2019.

Coordinated by CIVIX, the Student Budget Consultation is a unique classroom program that provides students with an opportunity to learn about government and public finance, debate important issues, and have a voice in our democracy.

The Student Budget Consultation launches next week, and will act as an important precursor to the 2019 federal election. The conversations surrounding the upcoming budget will launch months of debate on what Canada’s priorities should be, and where the money to pay for that spending should come from. The consultation provides Canada’s youth with an important opportunity to be part of this conversation.

To participate, you must register here: http://studentvote.ca/federal_sbc/

The project includes three online lesson plans along with a variety of supplementary tools, including animated videos about the Government of Canada’s budget, interviews with prominent youth advocating for key issues, as well as additional video content providing a cross-partisan pitch from all federal political parties. 

We expect to have videos from the leaders of nearly all of the parties in the House of Commons: Justin Trudeau (Liberal), Andrew Scheer (Conservative), Jagmeet Singh (NDP), Elizabeth May (Green) and Maxime Bernier (People’s Party), as well as a Bloc Québécois representative.

In the culminating activity, students will submit their feedback through a consultation survey. The results will be shared with the Department of Finance and all political parties so that they can see what matters most to young Canadians as they develop their platforms for the October federal election.

We hope you will consider involving your students in this civic education initiative.

High school students on Budget 2018: Confident about job prospects, but concerned with environment, education and income inequality

Canada’s high school students, the next generation of taxpayers have provided their insight and opinions on the major issues likely to feature in Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s third federal budget.

Some of this year’s notable results include that students believe that making education more affordable and accessible is key to their future success and overall economic well-being. The top issues they believe the government should focus on are healthcare, post-secondary education, the economy, and poverty and inequality. A majority also want a commitment to debt reduction. Overall, students seem to be increasingly positive about the future and job prospects.

For the fifth time, high school students from across the country participated in the Student Budget Consultation, a national initiative coordinated by CIVIX aimed at engaging youth in the federal government’s pre-budget consultation process.

More than 7,000 high school students, from more than 450 schools throughout the country, took part in the 2018 Student Budget Consultation.

Major points of interest include:

• Environmental protection a key priority – For the second year in a row, 60 per cent of students believe that protecting the environment is a major national priority and that funding in this area should be increased.
• Increase education and healthcare transfers – Approximately half of students believe that the government should increase funding for education, health care and support for women and youth. Meanwhile, only 15 per cent of students want more investment in arts and culture.
• Ranking major issues – When asked to rank the issues the government should focus on, students selected health care, the environment, and the economy as their top three concerns.
• Students confident in their job prospects – 92 per cent of students are confident that they will be able to find jobs which interest them, after graduation.
• Youth unemployment a concern – 59 per cent of students believe there is a youth unemployment problem in Canada; however, this percentage is noticeably smaller than it was in last year’s survey, when 68 per cent of students believed youth unemployment to be problematic.
• Upward mobility is possible – 72 per cent of students believe that, with hard work, upward mobility is achievable in Canadian society today.
• Affordability of post-secondary education – The bulk of students (39 per cent) believe that making post-secondary education more affordable is the most important step that the government could take to assist families.
• Carbon pricing – Students are increasingly in favour of federal carbon pricing (45 per cent) but a sizeable portion is still reluctant to take a position on the issue (37 per cent).
• Income inequality a concern – More than half of students believe that income inequality is a problem in Canada and that wealthy individuals, and to a lesser extent corporations, should be taxed at higher rates than they currently are.

To view an infographic of the results highlights, click here.

To view the complete results report, click here.

To view a map of participating schools, click here.

About the Student Budget Consultation

The Student Budget Consultation provides youth with an opportunity to learn about the government’s revenues and expenditures, discuss important political issues and suggested policies, and offer their insights on the priorities of the federal budget. The opinions of students are collected through a survey and the results are shared with the federal Department of Finance.

The 2018 Student Budget Consultation was organized by CIVIX with the support of the Government of Canada.

The 2018 Student Budget Consultation survey was conducted in partnership with Vox Pop Labs between November 2017 and February 2018.

About the Organization

CIVIX is a national registered charity dedicated to building the skills and habits of active and engaged citizenship among young Canadians. CIVIX provides experiential learning opportunities to help young Canadians practice their rights and responsibilities as citizens, and connect with their democratic institutions.

Student Vote, the flagship program of CIVIX, is a parallel election for students under the voting age, which coincides with official elections. In the 2015 federal election, 922,000 elementary and secondary students cast a Student Vote ballot from approximately half of all schools in Canada.

The Student Budget Consultation is a civic-education and financial-literacy program for high-school students across Canada. The process gives young people an opportunity to learn about government and current affairs, debate varying viewpoints about public policy, and offer their own opinions on the priorities of the federal budget.

Since November 2017, more than 7,000 young Canadians have participated in the 2018 Student Budget Consultation survey. Results have come from more than 450 schools throughout the country, representing every province and territory. A preliminary report on student opinions was shared with the Department of Finance in December 2017, and a final report will be shared by CIVIX upon the conclusion of the project.

New to this year’s project, CIVIX invited youth representatives to share their views on issues that matter to them, and explain how they could be addressed in Budget 2018. These include issues such as debt, mental health, the environment, women’s representation in government and Indigenous rights.

We also invited student participants to share their own views on important issues through audio or video clips, and we received some great responses. Excerpts are available below:

Catharine Laflamme (Grade 11 student)

“I think one of the first issues we should be looking at is tax savings and dealing with the top one per cent avoiding paying their taxes. We cannot balance the budget if we’re not getting the proper income from taxes first. Everyone should have an equal opportunity and be paying their fair share.

“Next, the federal government needs to look at how they’re spending Canadians’ hard-earned tax dollars. Instead of looking at short-term solutions, such as funding the oil and gas sector, we should be looking at long-term solutions to benefit the future generations, such as renewable energy and resources. Canada should be working on lessening the heavy financial and environmental weight we are leaving for our children.

“Finally, Canada needs to make sure the middle and lower-class citizens are being heard. All politicians at every level should be approachable and accessible even to the Canadian citizens who have to work 12 hours a day to support their family.

“There are many ways to get citizens involved, such as open houses, public hearings, delegations, public planning sessions and more. When the federal government starts opening up to public opinion, that’s when we will start to get more diverse budgetary solutions.”

Shelby Dirksen and Ashley Williams (Grade 11 students)

“We want the student budget to focus on the environment because we are dependent on the environment and the resources it provides.

“Without the environment, the economy will drastically decline and people will be left without jobs. We want the government to focus their funds on certain issues like pollution, the destruction of habitat and most importantly climate change.

“Climate change is a growing issue and by not putting the environment first we’re endangering all of our lives. The environment hasn’t always been first priority so this year we need to make it one and find a way to save our homes and cut back on our waste.

“We are all capable in contributing to this issue. We’re the ones that started it so we need to end it.”

Joey Gilderdale (Grade 11 student)

“Canada’s federal budget should be equally spent amongst all needs, wants and priorities that Canadians have and things our country needs as a whole.

“The upcoming federal budget, I feel, needs to include a wildfire fund. In the past 2-3 years we’ve had horrible wildfires in Alberta, and then in 2017 all amongst B.C.

“Wildfires are becoming more common during our summer months. These wildfires can happen anywhere and the budget should not only cover money to help train people to help deal with fires, but it should give people basic fire-prevention tips and emergency gear, training for firefighters, police forces, the Canadian armed forces and paramedics.

“Support should be given to those affected by wildfires and to help with future problems of wildfires. The budget should include enough money to train those mentioned and fund firefighting and fire prevention, and emergency situations.”

Logan Huband (Grade 11 student)

“The environment is one of the most important areas that the budget should support greatly. Creating new ways to reduce waste, and making clean renewable energy the norm, should be a top priority. Because at the end of the day, the budget won’t matter if you don’t have a planet to use it on.

“Secondly, post-secondary education should be made more affordable to increase accessibility to lower economic classes. This is also a key priority to ensure the future stays strong with well-educated people.

“Lastly, affordable housing should be invested in to grow the economy as well as grow cities and the population as a whole.”

Looking for more of what Canadian high-school students want to see in the upcoming federal budget? CIVIX will be releasing the 2018 Student Budget Consultation results next week! Results from previous years are available here.

High school students to Finance Minister Morneau: Reduce debt and increase spending on education and the environment

Despite the federal government’s plan to run deficits, two-thirds (66 per cent) of Canadian high school students believe that debt reduction should be a key priority. Students also want to see more investments in environmental protection and post-secondary education.

For the fourth time, high school students from across Canada participated in the Student Budget Consultation, a national initiative aimed at engaging youth in the federal government pre-budget consultation process. The project was coordinated by CIVIX, with the support of the Government of Canada, Interac and the Canadian Association of Former Parliamentarians.

More than 7,000 high school students took part in the 2017 Student Budget Consultation from more than 400 schools throughout the country, representing every province and territory.

Other findings include:

• Youth unemployment a concern – 68 per cent of students believe that there is a youth unemployment problem in Canada; making student debt more manageable (31 per cent) and improving access to quality jobs (27 per cent) are seen as the top remedies.
• Students confident in their own prospects – 87 per cent of students are confident in their individual ability to find and maintain a job they are interested in, despite believing that social mobility and raising a family will be more difficult for them than it was for their parents.
• Make post-secondary education more affordable – Students see increases to the affordability and accessibility of post-secondary education as the government’s most important means of helping youth and Canadian families (44 per cent).
• Environmental protection is a key priority – 61 per cent of students believe that protecting the environment is a critical national priority and that funding should be increased.
• Increase spending for education, health and innovation – Other top spending priorities include education (58 per cent), health care (47 per cent) and innovation (45 per cent); arts and culture was the lowest-ranked priority (32 per cent of students favoured a decrease in funding).
• Investments in affordable housing – 36 per cent of students noted affordable housing as the most important investment priority for their local area.
• Income inequality a growing concern – 61 per cent of students believe that income inequality is a problem in Canada today and a majority support raising taxes on wealthy Canadians (63 per cent) and corporations (53 per cent).

To view an infographic of the results highlights, click here.

To view the full results report, click here.

About the Student Budget Consultation

The Student Budget Consultation provides youth with an opportunity to learn about the government’s revenues and expenditures, discuss important political issues and suggested policies, and offer their insights on the priorities of the federal budget. The opinions of students are collected through a survey and the results are shared with the Department of Finance.

The 2017 survey was conducted in partnership with Vox Pop Labs between November 2016 and March 2017.

About the Organization

CIVIX national registered charity dedicated to building the habits of active and engaged citizenship among young Canadians. CIVIX provides experiential learning opportunities to help young Canadians practice their rights and responsibilities as citizens, and connect with their democratic institutions.

Student Vote, the flagship program of CIVIX, is a parallel election for students under the voting age coinciding with official elections. In the 2015 federal election, 922,000 elementary and secondary students cast a Student Vote ballot from approximately half of all schools in Canada.

Last October, the CIVIX team welcomed representatives from the World Bank and the Russian Ministry of Finance.

The 16-member delegation was interested in learning more about financial literacy initiatives for students, as well as our Student Budget Consultation program.

We were also joined by students, and their teachers, from Sandalwood Heights Secondary School in Brampton, Ontario. The students took part in the 2015 Student Budget Consultation (and the 2015 Student Vote), and shared their experiences — including a trip to Ottawa to meet with representatives from the federal Department of Finance.

Ivor Beazley, the Task Team Leader for Budget Literacy Project in Russia, wrote about the presentation on the World Bank’s blog:

The 2008 financial crisis was a “wake up” call to many teachers in the United States and Canada. As families lost their homes and parents lost jobs, they began to appreciate the importance of kids leaving school with some knowledge of the world of finance – especially about how personal decisions are made about finance and how financial decisions taken by government directly affect their lives and future prospects. 

A study group from Moscow and five regions of Russia recently visited Canada and the US to learn more about initiatives in those two countries and to bring discussion about financial issues into the classroom – with the idea of turning today’s students into active and responsible citizens of the future, able to make well-informed personal financial decisions and to engage in discussions about public finances on behalf of themselves and their communities.

Canada’s “Student Budget Consultation” program is an inspiring example of how to get students engaged and motivated. Each year, students get to debate real budget issues, in real time, and to hear from the real decision makers about the hard choices that have to be made. Students get to look at the facts, hear opinions from politicians, business leaders and other interest groups, debate budget priorities with fellow students, and then express their own views using a survey tool.

The results are then collected from schools across the country and consolidated to express the collective views of students on spending priorities. A small group of students then presents the Student Budget Consultation results on behalf of all the participating schools to the Minister of Finance in Ottawa.

Students told the group that being part of Student Budget Consultation was their first exposure to the topic of budgeting. Having political leaders speak directly to them in their classrooms (via video recordings), and having the opportunity to deal with real life issues, had quite an impact on their thinking, sparking their interest in finance and public affairs and, in some cases, changing the direction of their future studies and career choices.

Despite a certain fear factor, there was no shortage of teachers willing to get involved and consequently the program has expanded rapidly, with support from governments and non-profit organizations dedicated to civic education and economic education such as CIVIX Canada.

The study group heard some common lessons of experience. First, how helpful it was to involve teachers in the design, testing and evaluation of course materials. Second, how important it is to tie these lessons into the regular student curriculum. Finally, the design of the course needs careful thought about how to engage students’ interest. Introducing the topic of the public budget was easier once students had thought about their personal or family finances.

Real life scenarios, involving real people and events were much more engaging than dreamt-up case studies. And, interactive learning through debate, role plays, and use of technology draws students in. All of this provided much food for thought as Russia pursues its own initiative to promote Budget Literacy in schools.

You can read the original post in its entirety here.

Previously, our team has visited Moscow, Russia and Warsaw, Poland to speak about the Student Budget Consultation.

How can a country improve its budget openness and transparency? Is it enough to make budget documents publicly available on a website? These questions were at the heart of a budget literacy workshop I attended behalf of CIVIX last week in Warsaw, Poland.

The workshop was organized by and the World Bank’s resource team and PEMPAL’s Working Group on Budget Literacy, with the objective of learning from international experiences and raising budget literacy among citizens in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The participating countries included Armenia, Belarus, Croatia, Kosovo, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

In recent years, enhancing budget openness has been priority for these countries, and they now commonly publish budget information online. But because this information can be tricky to understand, even for those working in the field, simply publishing it online isn’t enough to truly engage citizens.

This is why improving budget literacy among citizens is a key component of an open and transparent budget process. There are several approaches to improving budget literacy, but one of the most effective ways is to teach it in school. This is what CIVIX does with the Student Budget Consultation, and it was out of desire to hear about our efforts at improving budget literacy among Canadian youth that I was invited to speak at the workshop.

My presentation, which was similar to one I gave last month in Moscow, focused on how the Student Budget Consultation complements our Student Vote program by teaching students about government revenues and expenditures, and I highlighted the positive impact on both students and teachers. To give the participants a real taste of the program, I also showed some of the educational videos featuring the Minister of Finance, stakeholder groups, and the leaders of the opposition parties.

The presentation sparked a good discussion, and there were several questions about the size of the CIVIX team, the impact of our programs on parents, and our ability to get major political players involved. The participants were quite impressed with the involvement of the Minister of Finance and the opposition leaders, and they felt it added credibility to the program.

The workshop also included an interesting presentation on budget literacy in the United Kingdom delivered by Maureen Pamplin, who is head of Sustainability at HM Revenue & Customs. She spoke about the Tax Facts Teaching Resource which will be launched later this year as part of the national curriculum. Like the Student Budget Consultation, this program involves a series of videos targeting youth, and learning about the similarities and differences between it and the Student Budget Consultation was a valuable experience, particularly as the institutions in Britain and Canada are so similar.

While in Warsaw, I also did get to do a bit sightseeing, including the reconstructed Old Town (it had been destroyed during WWII), the Palace of Culture and Science, and the Warsaw Uprising Monument.  

There are no other performances currently scheduled for the CIVIX Student Budget Consultation European Spring Tour, but I will continue to be working in Geneva, and who knows where I will be next!

Paul Anderson
CIVIX European Bureau Chief

Despite the decline in oil prices and government revenues, 49% of high schools students believe that the federal government should do everything it can to make sure the budget is balanced this year.

For the third year in a row, high school students from across Canada participated in the Student Budget Consultation, a national initiative aimed at engaging youth in the federal government budget process.

Six thousand high school students took part in the 2015 Student Budget Consultation from more than 300 classrooms throughout Canada, representing every province and territory. 

Other findings include:

• A balanced budget remains important – When asked how they would spend a budget surplus, students allocated a larger percentage of the surplus towards paying down the federal debt (12.9%) than any other option; purchasing new equipment for the Canadian forces (8.6%) and increasing health care transfers to the provinces (7.8%) were also top selections.
• Increase spending for education, the environment and healthcare – A majority of high school students think the government should spend more on education-related social transfers, protecting the environment and transfers to the provinces for health care. With respect to spending reductions, prisons/increased sentences (29%) and arts and culture (28%) were selected most.
• Lowering personal taxes and education funding most effective approaches to helping families – When asked what would be most helpful for families, students prioritized lowering personal income taxes (28%) and subsidizing post-secondary education (26%). Implementing a national daycare program (9%) and income splitting (7%) received significantly less support.
• Reducing tuition seen as the most important strategy to increase youth employment – Approximately 20% of those surveyed said the cost of education was the biggest hurdle facing them in starting their careers, closely followed by career uncertainty (19%).
• National to scholarship program chosen as best way to mark Canada’s 150th anniversary – A plurality of young Canadians want the Government to mark its 150^th anniversary by establishing a new national scholarship program.

To view an infographic of the results highlights, click here.

To view the full results summary, click here.

The results of a corresponding survey of 1,000 Canadians aged 18 and over conducted by polling firm Abacus Data finds that high school students and Canadians 18+ share many of the same priorities and attitudes when it comes to the budget. However, there are also some notable differences between the two groups.

High school students are more likely to prioritize education spending, tuition fee reductions and public debt reduction, while Canadians 18+ are more likely to prioritize healthcare spending, tax reductions, and economic growth. 

• While a majority of high school students and Canadians 18+ want the federal government to spend more on healthcare transfers, students were more likely to want to see increased federal spending on education related social transfers, reducing crime through crime prevention programs and protecting the environment. Canadians 18+ wanted to see increased spending on tax credits and/or benefits.
• When asked what was most important to them in thinking about the kind of Canada they want to see 15 years from now, high school students were more likely to rank investments in education and research, and debt reduction as the most important outcomes – while Canadians 18+ were more likely to rank improving health care and strong growth in the Canadian economy as most important.
• When asked to identify what the most important step the government could take to help families, about three in ten students and Canadians 18+ prioritized personal income tax reductions. Students were more likely to select subsidizing tuition while Canadians 18+ were more likely to prioritize family income splitting and a national childcare program.

To view the full results comparison summary (high school students vs Canadians 18+), click here.

About the Student Budget Consultation

The Student Budget Consultation is a civic education and financial literacy program that gives young Canadians an opportunity to learn about government and public policy, debate varying viewpoints and offer their opinion on the priorities of the upcoming federal budget.

The program culminated with a consultation survey, held online and through paper-based questionnaires.

The 2015 survey was conducted in partnership with Abacus Data between December 2014 and April 2015. The results were shared with the Department of Finance earlier this month.

About the Organization

CIVIX is Canada’s leading civic education organization working to build the capacity and commitment of young Canadians to participate in our democracy. CIVIX offers resources and innovative approaches to make it easy and effective for educators to teach democracy and citizen engagement.

Student Vote, the flagship program of CIVIX, is a parallel election for students under the voting age coinciding with official elections. In the 2011 federal election, more than 563,000 students cast a Student Vote ballot from nearly 3,800 schools throughout Canada.

The 2015 Student Budget Consultation was coordinated with the support of the Government of Canada, Interac and the Canadian Association of Former Parliamentarians.

For further information:

For comment or to be directed to students who participated in the survey, contact Taylor Gunn, President of CIVIX at [email protected] or 1 866 488 8775.

“Hey Paul,” was how the email from my colleague Dan started. “We’re giving a presentation on the Student Budget Consultation to the Russian Ministry of Finance on April 2 via Skype. In the rare chance we needed to get you to Moscow to give the presentation in person, could that be possible?”

Since the beginning of March, I have been working remotely for CIVIX from Geneva, Switzerland. Since CIVIX programs are run exclusively in Canada (for now, at least), I didn’t expect to by flying around Europe to talk about our work. I was completely wrong.

Within a few days of Dan’s initial email, my flights and hotel were booked, and I started working on a presentation and made sure that I knew every little detail about the Student Budget Consultation.

My presentation was part of a workshop organized by the World Bank and the Russian Ministry of Finance, who are currently working together on a pilot project to start teaching budget literacy to high school students in several regions across Russia. The project is still in the early stages, and this workshop was designed to establish goals, priorities and to learn from budget literacy initiatives in other countries. There were about 50 participants in total, which included the Russian Deputy Minister of Finance, World Bank staff, bureaucrats from the ministries of Finance and Education, international experts, representatives from the pilot regions and other education stakeholders.

My presentation was part of a panel on “International Experiences in Strengthening Budget Literacy.” The other presenters were from South Africa and Brazil, as well as from the US and the Netherlands via Skype. In my 30 minute presentation, I talked about the goals of the Student Budget Consultation, shared some of the program videos, looked at parts of the survey and the results of past years, and answered questions from the audience. My presentation was well received, and I think it combined with the other international presentations to give the project leaders a good idea of what is possible and what works in budget literacy initiatives.

One of the common themes of the workshop was the need to create citizen demand for budget information. Even if governments are completely transparent about their budgeting processes, it is meaningless if citizens do not care or cannot understand the information. This is why it is so important for financial literacy programs to be in schools, because they help create informed and engaged citizens who will demand transparency and hold governments to account.

The international component of the workshop also opened my eyes to the interesting work being done in the areas of civic education and budget literacy in other countries. As our work is focused in Canada, it was useful to hear from experiences from countries as diverse as Brazil and South Africa. It was also very interesting to hear about the vast differences between Russian regions, as well as a strong rural-urban divide in the quality of education. Being massive countries with pronounced geographical differences is something that Russia and Canada certainly have in common, and we share the challenge of trying to establish budget literacy curriculum that works for everyone.  

The two day workshop ended on a Friday afternoon, and then I spent the weekend doing some sightseeing in Moscow. It was great to see some of the historical sites while spending time just wandering around the city.

Now I am back in Geneva, but the CIVIX Student Budget Consultation European Spring Tour will continue next month in Warsaw, Poland. Stay tuned!

Paul Anderson
CIVIX European Bureau Chief