The successful initiative is developed by the Central Bank of Chile and the MIPP Millennium Institute, located at the Industrial Engineering Department, Faculty of Physical Sciences and Mathematics (FCFM), of the University of Chile. It is primarily aimed at high school teachers and pedagogy students, with the purpose of delivering knowledge and information on micro and macroeconomics, the functioning of the financial markets, personal finance, money management, and the role and functions of the Central Bank, to be later taught to their students.
This third version of the online course The City of Opportunities, held between August 3 and November 15, attracted more than 2,000 applicants, a number higher than all previous versions. In total, 560 teachers from all over Chile successfully completed the course, graduating on an online ceremony held on Friday, December 4, 2020. The graduation ceremony was headed by the President of the Central Bank of Chile, Mario Marcel, the Rector of the University of Chile, Ennio Vivaldi, and Patricio Valenzuela, MIPP researcher and academic at the Faculty of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (FCFM), University of Chile.
During the event, awards were handed out to the teachers for their academic excellence throughout the course: Daniela Espinoza from Quilpué, Francisca Armijo from Santiago, and Sebastián Marimán from Valdivia were the ones who stood out for their grades, creativity, and dedication to their lesson plans.
This course arises from the need of teachers and pedagogy students to acquire economic and financial knowledge that, as of 2007, needs to be taught in secondary education courses, mainly in the subjects of History, Geography and Social Sciences, Economics and Society, and that of Civic Education. Furthermore, the necessity to financially educate students was also made evident from the poor performance of Chilean students in the financial module of the PISA 2015 and 2018 test scores, where 40% and 30% of 15-year-old students, respectively, scored the lowest level of financial literacy (level 1, on a scale of 1 to 5), ranking below the OECD average, and below the average of all the evaluated countries.
The course is based on the curriculum benchmarks of the Ministry of Education, specifically the Economics and Society unit, within the subject of History and Social Sciences for Secondary Education, and the financial module of the PISA test.
Throughout its three years of existence, the course has been able to reach 1,108 teachers from all over Chile, who are now equipped with new tools to teach financial education to thousands of students.
The City of Opportunities Course is an activity developed as part of the External Outreach Program (PME) of the Millennium Scientific Initiative, belonging to the National Agency for Research and Development (ANID) of the Ministry of Science and Technology, which has the objective to disseminate and transfer scientific knowledge to the community.
To learn more about this great initiative, “The City of Opportunities”, visit http://cursoadistancia.cl/
MIPP Chile 2024