Today 53 per cent of Lithuanian schools will start the new school year with LFMI’s textbook Economics in 31 Hours. Published in 2015, this year the textbook will reach 22,000 upper secondary school students country-wide with over 300 economics teachers delivering innovative, engaging and practical classes based on LFMI’s online teacher’s manual.
“It is by no means true that the knowledge of economics is necessary for a minority – the understanding of the discipline is crucial for everyone and essential for the well-being of the society. It is of vital importance that students understand that they and their actions are the actual drivers of prosperity,” – says Marija Vyšniauskaitė, co-author of the textbook.
To that end, the textbook is designed to equip students with the basic knowledge of economics and provide answers to questions like what determines my future earnings, why is it worth investing in knowledge and skills, what is the role of an entrepreneur in the society, and why economic logic is important in public policy. These are everyday issues the answers to which are much more complex than they might at first sight appear.
Launched in 2015 together with the textbook, the teacher’s platform is not simply a key to the tasks provided in the textbook, but a unique tool for designing classroom activities that provides additional tasks, relevant and up-to-date statistics, games, and video lessons. Continuous updates, exchange of experience, and teachers’ feedback and engagement in the development of new tasks makes this tool all the more relevant as the majority of teachers do not have economic education. This way the platform is guaranteed to reflect the most recent economic realities and issues.
“In 2016 through 2017 Economics in 31 Hours and its teacher’s platform won the People’s Choice Award in LOGIN, the largest tech and innovations festival in the Baltic States, the prestigious $100,000 Templeton Freedom Award awarded by the Atlas Network and the London Book Fair’s Educational Learning Resources Award. This is more than an argument for the need of contemporary learning and teaching aids of economics,” – adds Žilvinas Šilėnas, LFMI’s president and co-author of the textbook.
