Financial and Consumer Education in Schools

Law 10824 of the Legislature of the Province of La Rioja, published in the province’s Official Gazette on September 7, 2025, creates the Financial Education and Consumer and User Rights Program. The program will be implemented progressively in all public and private educational institutions at all levels, and in all forms of formal and informal education under the provincial Ministry of Education.

The law aims to:

• Contribute to the educational development and to improving the quality of life of people in the community, from a comprehensive economic and financial perspective.

• Encourage savings in line with people's economic capabilities.

• Contribute to promoting entrepreneurship, value creation, a culture of work and savings, and economic and financial education.

• Provide tools so that people can recognize maneuvers or situations compatible with virtual scams or crimes in the financial system.

• Ensure understanding of the characteristics of traditional and innovative financial products and services and the financial risks associated with them.

• Use tools to support the development of financial skills to build capital and analyze investment alternatives.

• Promote training in skills that enable people to better manage their money and improve decision-making to optimize their personal finances.

• Generate knowledge and understanding of people's rights and responsibilities as holders of financial products, including knowledge of available and mandatory transparency and disclosure tools, unfair, prohibited, or discriminatory practices (unfair terms and conditions, illegal debt collection practices, etc.), as well as ways to file complaints and seek redress for possible damages.

• Promote the protection of individuals who use financial products and services, with a special emphasis on the most vulnerable social segments, from a federal perspective, taking into account gender, diversity, adults and older adults, beneficiaries of social assistance programs, young people, and MSMEs.

• Contribute, through education in all its forms and at all levels, to the construction of a financially-orderly community that respects the values of economic security and social justice, enabling the creation of effective opportunities for access to financial tools for people’s individual and family development.

• Promote financial education among young people as a preventive tool against digital gambling addiction; and develop skills in planning, expense control, critical thinking, and responsible decision-making, so that they can identify risks in online gambling, gambling apps, and compulsive shopping, to reduce their vulnerability to economic addictions.

Finally, the Law provides that the Ministry of Education will be the enforcement authority and that it may coordinate and articulate its strategic actions aimed at complying with the contents of the Law with Banco de La Rioja SAU and other ministerial agencies; non-formal institutions; and public, private, and financial entities it deems relevant.