Improving Financial Literacy Skills for Young People: Scaling the Financial Education Program in Jordan

The Center for Universal Education (CUE) at Brookings has been investigating efforts to scale and sustain evidence-based initiatives leading to large-scale improvements in children's learning. CUE has been implementing a series of collaborative action research initiatives called Real-time Scaling Labs (RTSL), in partnership with local institutions in several countries. The goal of these RTSLs is to generate evidence and provide practical recommendations around the process of scaling in global education--encouraging a stronger link between research and practice. This report focuses on one of the scaling labs in Jordan, launched in 2019 in collaboration with the Central Bank of Jordan (CBJ), the MoE, and INJAZ. The lab focused on this partnership-led process of implementing, adapting, and scaling the National Financial Education Program (FEP) in grades 7-12 across the country. While this report is focused on the story of the FEP, it also serves as a case study into larger questions of how an evidence-based initiative can achieve progress toward national sustainable scale, with lessons that are transferable beyond FEP and Jordan. Section one of the report provides a brief background on the case, including an overview of the education ecosystem, movement to promote greater financial inclusion in Jordan, and brief descriptions of key actors and initiatives engaged with FEP. Section two details the story of implementing, adapting, and expanding FEP in Jordan to date--exploring critical factors, opportunities, and challenges related to its design, delivery, financing, and enabling environment. [This report was written with Jenny Perlman Robinson, Maya Elliott, and Omar Qargha. For the Summary Findings, see ED626288.]