Financial education: Fondazione Cariplo launches ‘Scelte in tasca’, involving around 1,200 students

Understanding the value of money, learning to manage a budget, and being aware of the opportunities and risks associated with credit, investments, insurance and pensions. These are skills that are increasingly essential for making informed choices in adult life, yet they remain insufficiently widespread amongst many young Italians today. For this reason, Fondazione Cariplo is strengthening its commitment to financial education with ‘Scelte in Tasca’, a new programme aimed at local sixth-form students, designed to provide practical tools and skills useful in everyday life. The project is being delivered by Fondazione Cariplo in collaboration with InVento Innovation Lab, a social enterprise specialising in the design and management of innovative educational programmes for schools, recognised by the Ministry of Education and Merit, Bank Station, an organisation active in financial literacy and education through digital tools and communication, and the Evaluation Lab of the Giordano Dell’Amore Social Venture Foundation, which will support the initiative with methodological supervision, monitoring and evaluation of results. Thanks to the collaboration between these organisations, ‘Scelte in Tasca’ combines educational expertise, specialist content and the assessment tools needed to build an effective, replicable model capable of generating a lasting impact in the participating schools, including with a view to reducing the gender gap.

InVento Lab, which in recent years has involved over 80,000 pupils and 2,600 teachers across more than 700 schools, will be responsible, in particular, for designing the training programme and teaching methodology, and will deliver the training to all the classes involved; Bank Station will contribute to the development of financial education content and edutainment tools; Evaluation Lab, meanwhile, will monitor the initiative and assess its potential for replication and future development. ‘Scelte in Tasca’ follows on from recent national provisions that have introduced financial education into civic education and aims to trial an innovative model that integrates face-to-face teaching, workshop activities and digital tools.

In line with the ‘Guidelines for the Development of Financial Literacy Skills in Schools’, pupils will be guided through a programme focusing on expenditure and savings planning, credit, investments, insurance and pensions, using accessible language and participatory learning methods. The first edition of ‘Scelte in Tasca’ will involve 15 sixth-form colleges, 59 classes and around 1,200 students, totalling an estimated 600 hours of educational activities during the 2026/2027 academic year. Launch events are also planned in the various regions involved, along with a closing event to present the results achieved. At the heart of the initiative will be the creation of a genuine ‘EduFin Toolkit’, a digital toolkit comprising teaching materials, videos, FAQs, games and workshop activities available to pupils and teachers and accessible via the InVentoSchool digital platform, accredited by the Ministry of Education (MIM).

The launch of the initiative takes place as part of Financial Education Month and in the run-up to World Savings Day, an occasion that highlights a theme closely linked to the history of Fondazione Cariplo. Indeed, throughout its 210-year history, the promotion of a culture of saving and financial responsibility has been a central element of a tradition that is now being revitalised through tools and forms of communication capable of engaging with the younger generations. Fifteen secondary schools are taking part in the first edition of the project, spread across the provinces of Milan (7 schools), Monza and Brianza (2), Pavia (2), Bergamo (1), Brescia (1), Como (1) and Verbano-Cusio-Ossola (1).

“Financial literacy is an essential skill for exercising fully informed citizenship. Understanding the value of saving, knowing how to assess opportunities and risks, and learning to make informed decisions,” said Giovanni Azzone, president of Fondazione Cariplo, “means acquiring tools that will support young people throughout their lives. Managing a current account, understanding how it works and what the costs are; having the basic knowledge to manage one’s own investments as an adult or young adult, understanding the risks to avoid mistakes and losing one’s capital or savings; setting up a pension fund, so as to be able to look realistically and pragmatically towards the years when one stops working; these are steps that we cannot take for granted today. Indeed, numerous studies confirm that there is very limited knowledge on these issues. It is important to learn certain things from a young age, and then as teenagers. With ‘Scelte in Tasca’, we are reinforcing a commitment that Fondazione Cariplo has long been pursuing in schools across the region and which today, through complementary initiatives aimed at sixth-form colleges, vocational colleges and technical colleges, involves a total of around 4,000 students.”