APG — the fiduciary manager of the €292 billion ($381 billion) Stichting Pensioenfonds ABP, Heerlen, Netherlands — wants to share its financial knowledge to the next generation.
In a joint program with Erasmus University and educational development company CED Groep, APG is helping to introduce a new financial information curriculum aimed at Dutch students ages 12 to 14 to help explain such concepts as “what is a stock?” and what happens “when there is economic growth or shrinkage,” according to APG spokesman Hans Ten Brinke.
The curriculum will be distributed monthly to 4,500 primary schools and 750 secondary schools.
“Financial markets worldwide directly or indirectly influence the pockets of everyone — grandparents via pension savings, parents through their jobs or the value of their homes, and the young people themselves. For example, they receive pocket money,” according to Onno Steenbeek, director of asset liability management at APG and professor of pension fund risk management at Erasmus University, Rotterdam.
