Students are eager to expand their knowledge of the economy, and are increasingly looking for independent economics courses to further their education. These findings reflect the experience of the Lithuanian Free Market Institute (LFMI), which is now organizing free economics courses for the fifth consecutive year. Over 2000 Lithuanian students have registered over the course of our interactive “Economics online” courses.
This year the highest performing 10th grade high school student was Austėja Šešelgytė, from Kaunas Juozas Naujalis gymnasium. She, along with 29 other top students from this year’s course, will go on a summer camp organised by LFMI.
“We are helping students to see the economy as an important and inevitable part of life – not as something boring and removed from today’s reality. The knowledge and methods taught in schools do not provide a sufficient foundation for a sound understanding of economics. It is not surprising that our course attracts so many young people from all over Lithuania,” says head of the LFMI Centre of Education, Marija Vyšniauskaitė.
Who owns the moon? What would happen if the minimum wage was set at 5000 litas? What does the Big Mac say about economy? Answers to these, and other questions, were presented in visual lessons, comics and other interactive formats. Economics courses were updated on-the-fly to reflect current Lithuanian and world events, and to discuss the latest news and current affairs.
This weekend, the final event of “Economics Online” was held in Vilnius. The organizers of the final brain battle attracted as many as 60 students from 9 cities in Lithuania: Vilnius, Kaunas, Panevėžys, Tauragė, Utena, Lazdijai, Šeduva, Trakai and Grigiškės.
The finale was held in the reading room of the Contemporary Art Centre, where “Economics Online” brain battle finalists tackled questions prepared not only by LFMI president Žilvinas Šilėnas, but LFMI experts Vytautas Žukauskas, Laurynas Rekašius, and Austėja Kazlauskytė. Brain battle enthusiast, Paulius Ambrazevičius, contributed questions to the final round as well.
