Enrich students' minds as well their pockets

An advertisement of Alibaba's financial arm Ant Financial in Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang province. [Long Wei / For China Daily]

ABOUT 100 STUDENTS aged between 6 and 12 years from Beijing, Shanghai and Wenzhou in East China's Zhejiang province saved, invested and bid in auctions, sailing through a test conducted by Ant Financial, the financial arm of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, on Sunday. They were each given 200 yuan ($31) and left for an hour in a zone filled with toys and sweets which they could buy as well. Some of them managed and maximized their funds in sophisticated fashion. Qianjiang Evening News lauds the children's maturity in matters financial, saying correct values and financial awareness are very important for their development.

Traditional Chinese education encourages people to put the knowledge they have acquired into practice to earn a living, but only on an ideological level. The diffusion of decent values alone cannot enable children to make enough money to live on their own; it might even confuse and mislead them about the role of personal wealth.

Very few people can manage to live without tangible assets. For most people, supporting themselves and their families is already a good deed; but it would be even better if they also contribute to society with their hard-won wealth.

It is universally acknowledged that earning returns on investments is an efficient way of accumulating wealth, and having more money allows people to do things they really want to do.

But financial maturity is not only about making money and managing funds to earn even more. Correct values and perspectives are of crucial importance to a person's financial capability and sustaining capacity.

The so-called financial quotient is about not only generating and managing wealth, but also striking a balance between money and spiritual well-being. So the children should be educated in an all-arounded manner.