A fifth of Dutch adolescents score moderately when it comes to knowledge of financial concepts, was the news a few years ago. One thing is certain: this does not apply to the havo students who successfully completed the final exam in business economics this Wednesday afternoon.
During the business economics exam – a subject that was still called Management & Organization at the time of my own final exam in 2002 – a whole series of concepts and skills are introduced that the students have to know and explain. Among other things, the students should understand what a company balance sheet looks like, with assets, reserves, debt and equity and profit and loss. These concepts come up when answering questions about the expansion of supermarket chain Jumbo and whether or not a restaurant will start a delivery service.
The exam is built up of six exercises with a total of 29 questions. Based on a number of introductory texts, the students have to make calculations or answer questions in text – there was only one multiple choice question. For students who have difficulty with reading comprehension, this will not have been an easy test.
The exam makers know how to cleverly handle multiple terms for most questions. For example, the difference between shares and bonds is the theme of a question about an inheritance that the two brothers Rob and Mathijs received from their uncle Tonni. The question is, what better to sell to pay the inheritance tax? In passing concepts such as dividend, debt and solvency of a company are discussed.
I suspect that most students who have chosen business economics have the ambition to start their own company later on. For example, one exercise reads: “Name a characteristic of a self-employed person agreement”. In that respect, the profession seems to me to be an echo of what used to be a medium-sized diploma. Such a diploma was mandatory until the year 2000 to be able to run your own company.
Nevertheless, the name business economics is perhaps somewhat misleading for the content of the course. Perhaps adding ‘& personal finances’ would be a good idea? There are many useful concepts that everyone should know and understand. Also the students who see more in a permanent contract under a boss. How does a pay slip work? How much does it cost to buy additional vacation days? What are the conditions to get a mortgage? What are the rights of a works council? And as said before: how does inheritance tax work?
What that personal finance In this respect, the exam makers have missed an educational opportunity. A question about payment service Klarna explains what the revenue model is behind this service, which is often used by young people, to make deferred payments on web shops. There it would have been very useful to immediately explain how expensive that service is if you, as a customer, miss a payment.