Evaluating the Effectiveness of Financial Education Programmes

Policy makers in many countries are giving more attention to ‘financial literacy’ or ‘financial capability’, and there are many financial education programmes. The need to evaluate the effectiveness of these programmes is likely to increase. But little evaluation is currently taking place, and the evaluations made so far show mixed and inconclusive results. It is not clear whether this is a consequence of poor evaluation methods or poor programme design, or, that financial education works patchily. But it does mean that a positive impact from financial education has not been unambiguously proven; nor has a clear picture emerged of what works best and why. Evaluation of financial education is inherently difficult, and the impact of any one programme can probably never be fully isolated. Nevertheless, this paper suggests that evaluating the effectiveness of financial education can and should be improved. It begins to develop an approach to do so, including a Financial Education Evaluation (FEE) Framework which can be tailored for any programme in any country. This paper also suggests guidelines for governments and other public authorities to lead the way towards better evaluation of the benefits, costs and value for money of financial education.