Kolkata: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee inaugurated the West Bengal students’ credit card scheme to help them with bank loans for education. However, banks are not able to process the loan because of faulty applications.
To handle this situation, Reserve Bank of India and member banks of the State Level Bankers’ Committee (SLBC) have advised the state education department to include financial literacy in schools which would help them learn basic banking transaction details.
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At a meeting of the SLBC, the committee general manager SG Saha proposed this before the state government and it was seconded by RBI regional director Sushivon Sinha. The state education secretary, Manish Jain was present at the meeting and he assured all present in the meeting to take up this proposal with higher authorities.
On this issue, ETV Bharat first contacted the state Education Minister Bratya Basu but his calls remained unanswered. The Trinamool Congress spokesman and senior party legislator, Tapas Roy was contacted but refused to make any comment on this issue.
Educationalist Malini Bhagat welcomed the proposal of introducing financial literacy as a subject in school education. According to her, during her time often students even at post-graduation level were completely unaware of the basic financial and banking transaction details. “It is a good proposal that the students will learn financial literacy at the school level only,” she said.
Academic administrator Suchismita Bagchi Sen told ETV Bharat that teaching financial literacy at an early level or school level is an excellent proposal. “Banking is a part of our regular life. If the students receive the learning on financial and banking transactions at an early age, so once they complete 18 years of age they will be well versed with the basic technical details on banking. This is really an excellent proposal,” she said.
