Equipping citizens with the skills necessary to achieve their full potential, participate in an increasingly interconnected global economy, and ultimately convert better jobs into better lives is a central preoccupation of policy makers around the world. Results from the OECD’s recent Survey of Adult Skills show that highly skilled adults are twice as likely to be employed and almost three times more likely to earn an above-median salary than poorly skilled adults. In other words, poor skills severely limit people’s access to better-paying and more rewarding jobs. Highly skilled people are also more likely to volunteer, see themselves as actors rather than as objects of political processes, and are more likely to trust others. Fairness, integrity and inclusiveness in public policy thus all hinge on the skills of citizens.

Finance is a part of everyday life for many 15-year-olds: they are already consumers of financial services such as bank accounts with access to online payment facilities. As they near the end of compulsory education, students will also face complex and challenging financial choices. One of their first major decisions may be to choose whether to continue with formal education and how to finance such study.

“What is important for citizens to know and be able to do?” That is the question that underlies the triennial survey of 15-year-old students around the world known as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). PISA assesses the extent to which students near the end of compulsory education have acquired key knowledge and skills that are essential for full participation in modern societies. The assessment, which focuses on reading, mathematics, science and problem-solving, does not just ascertain whether students can reproduce knowledge; it also examines how well students can extrapolate from what they have learned and apply that knowledge in unfamiliar settings, both in and outside of school. This approach reflects the fact that modern economies reward individuals not for what they know, but for what they can do with what they know.

PISA 2012 is the first large-scale international study to assess the financial literacy, learned in and outside of school, of 15-year-olds nearing the end of compulsory education. It assesses the extent to which students in 18 participating countries and economies have the knowledge and skills that are essential to make financial decisions and plans for their future. This chapter highlights the importance of financial literacy, defines financial education and financial literacy, and discusses how the assessment was organised. It also offers an overview of the limited and uneven provision of financial education in schools in participating countries and economies, and describes the steps taken in some countries to improve financial literacy among students.

This chapter compares students’ performance in the 2012 PISA financial literacy assessment across and within countries and economies. It discusses what students know about financial literacy and how well they can apply what they know, and examines how student performance in financial literacy compares with performance in reading and mathematics. The analysis is complemented with contextual economic and financial information about participating countries and its association with performance in financial literacy.

This chapter examines the relationship between students’ financial literacy and the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of these students and their families. In particular, the chapter looks at performance differences across gender, socio-economic status, parents’ education, parents’ occupation, immigrant background, and language spoken at home. The chapter then analyses how these different factors may be related to observed variations in students’ financial literacy.

This chapter explores the relationship between students’ experiences with money matters (through holding bank accounts and debit cards and through their sources of money), and their performance in the financial literacy assessment. The chapter also analyses the relationship between students’ attitudes and their performance in the assessment. It concludes by examining students’ performance in relation to their behaviour in a hypothetical spending situation.

Young people on the brink of adulthood are poised to make complex financial decisions that will have an impact on the rest of their lives. Results from the PISA 2012 financial literacy assessment show that many students, including those living in countries that are high-performers in the main PISA assessment, need to improve their financial literacy. This chapter discusses selected implications of those results for policy and practice.