For the back-to-school season, CIRANO offers teachers in high schools, CEGEPs and community colleges across Canada some very stimulating financial education activities in which hundreds of thousands of students have participated over the years.

• FinÉcoLab educational games: for fun learning about financial and economic concepts!

Teachers can use the FinÉcoLab educational game kit to introduce their students to economic concepts related to markets and prices, individual preferences, and collective and individual choices. A FinEcoLab game transforms the classroom into an experimental laboratory by involving students in a situation that reflects the interactions in which financial and economic choices are made. The learning of financial and economic concepts is done in an effective and fun way. FinÉcoLab games are available online for free  (www.finecolab.com/). The Autorité des marchés financiers is CIRANO's main partner for the FinÉcoLab games.

• The Stock Market Investing 101 course with the Bourstad Program!

CIRANO also invites high schools, CEGEPs and community colleges across Canada to register for the Bourstad 2022-2023 Program, which consists of a series of learning activities and stock market simulations. This educational program fosters new knowledge about responsible investing and portfolio management.

Schools enrolled in the program can organize private simulations for their students at any time during the school year and can also register their students for the 36th Bourstad competition, which will be held from February 13 to April 14, 2023. Information on how schools can register for the Bourstad 2022-2023 program can be found at www.bourstad.ca/.

Bourstad simulations are conducted entirely online on a platform that offers state-of-the-art functionality. In a Bourstad simulation, the participant acts as an investment advisor to a fictitious investor, following the real markets. The application includes coaching features for teachers and managers of private simulations and the Bourstad competition in schools. Teachers and students participating in the simulations benefit from a rich and varied support. For more information, see the video presentation of the previous edition of the competition.

«Strengthening economic and financial literacy must be a priority for Quebec, especially among young people. Data from the CIRANO 2022 Barometer shows that those who do not know how to assess the level of risk for household debt are almost 7 times more likely to be concerned about economic and financial risks. This result and other perceptions of the Barometer related to economic issues point to a need to improve the economic literacy of Quebecers, and the FinÉcoLab games and the Bourstad financial education program are the perfect tools to address this need. These initiatives are directly related to CIRANO's mission to transfer knowledge from the world of theory to the world of practice. »

Ms. Nathalie de Marcellis-Warin, President and CEO of CIRANO

→ Read the press release