Program equipping students with financial literacy hit 400k mark

A free national program that aims to equip young Australians with financial literacy skills has hit a landmark milestone.

Nearly 400,000 students have learnt essential financial habits via by not-for-profit company, Ecstra.

Students at Blacktown Boys High School in Sydney's west spoke to 9News after completing in-class "talk money" lessons.

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Ayaan said before undertaking the program his understanding about money was "pretty elementary".

"I had a general idea of how income works and how tax works but it wasn't very in-depth," he said.

Student Parin said he studied economics and knew "all the fancy definitions".

"But I didn't really know what they meant," he said.

Ecstra set up Talk Money to help schools supercharge their financial literacy programs.

"We know that students that study maths or economics will be exposed to many financial literacy concepts," said chief executive Caroline Stewart.

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"But unless you take those electives, some students can go all the way through school without a dedicated financial literacy component."

Since launching in 2022, Talk Money has become the nation's largest face-to-face, free financial education program for students in years five to 10.

The scheme has helped educate over 400,000 students across 9900 workshops.

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