Financial education and inclusion among middle school students in Romania

The purpose of the research presented in this paper is to examine the level of financial education and the degree of financial inclusion for students in Romania. To achieve this goal, a questionnaire was administered in secondary schools in urban and rural areas in 11 counties of the country, to which 323 students responded. The questionnaire was designed to achieve the objective of identifying the behavior of the subjects towards bank card payments, the use of internet banking applications and budget management. The data were analyzed in terms of distribution by gender, by county and by area of ​​origin and were compared with the data available at national level in NBR reports or internationally in OECD reports in order to draw conclusions regarding the attitude towards banking digitalization, towards non-cash payments and towards the financial behavior of students. This study adopts a mixed analytical approach that combines micro-level survey data with macro-level indicators of financial inclusion. The first component of the analysis is based on a questionnaire administered to eighth-grade students in Romania (the period should be mentioned) to examine the relationship between financial literacy and the use of digital banking tools. To analyze broader disparities in financial inclusion across demographic groups, the second component complements the survey evidence with macro-level indicators derived from the Global Findex database. Of course, the analysis took into account the statistical and econometric tools using a series of methods and models, such as the survey method, comparative analysis, descriptive statistics, and principal component analysis. Based on the analyzes made and presented in this scientific report, some proposals and recommendations were formulated.

Acknowledgement: This research was supported by grant from the Petroleum-Gas University of Ploiesti, Romania, project number GO-GICS-14819/26.06.2026, within the Internal Grants for Scientific Research.