Necessidade da obrigatoriedade do ensino financeiro nas escolas na percepção dos estudantes de graduação da Paraíba

Abstract

Understanding the importance of financial education has become crucial in a global context where individuals and societies face complex challenges related to managing financial resources. In Brazil, the topic gains even more relevance in the face of alarming evidence of a low level of financial competence, as demonstrated by research such as PISA and S&P Ratings Services. The lack of financial education since childhood has generated significant consequences, such as the high rate of debt and default, as indicated by PEIC. In this context, the work aimed to understand the perception of higher education students in Paraíba about the need to make the teaching of financial education mandatory in schools. The specific objectives include understanding students' perception of the role of the state government in promoting financial education, the challenges in relation to the search for financial education in the country, verifying whether existing government initiatives are sufficient in the interviewees' view and evaluating the perception of students about mandatory financial education. For this, a questionnaire was carried out divided into 3 blocks – having 14 multiple choice and short answer questions, in which 83 responses were collected, from graduates of 29 different degrees. The research shows that most of the interviewees did not have access to financial education when they were in school and that even though they understand that the topic is “extremely important” in schools, they consider that their levels of personal financial literacy are “Bad”, thus having a mismatch between the perception of the topic and its applicability to everyday life in the interviewees. Therefore, it is concluded that even with the Federal Government's initiatives, such as the ENEF week, undergraduate students in the state of Paraíba do not believe that enough is being done to promote Financial Education in Brazil.