FLC - Rules, Terms and Conditions

Financial Literacy in the Classroom

SAF, with the support of SagenTM, offers high school students the opportunity to develop confidence and competence in making financial decisions by providing supports and resources to prepare students to test and challenge their knowledge of personal finance and wealth management by participating in the Financial Literacy Competition (hereinafter referred to as the "FLC").

The FLC has been developed in collaboration with Business Studies teachers within the Waterloo Region and Waterloo Catholic District School Boards.

Contest format and participants

Contest format:

  • 50-60 questions (primarily multiple choice, short answer, match/sort/rank)
  • 60 minutes
  • Delivered and written online from the comfort of your school and classroom
  • The competitions take place over two days. Participating teachers will be asked to select one of the two days and a 3 hour time window during which their students will compete. The competition takes place on each day between the hours of 8am - 5pm ET. All students who are registered to participate with that teacher are expected to compete on the same day, during the same time window. If a teacher has students who want to compete on different days, a second registration will be required. The date and time can be selected closer to the competition dates and does not need to be known when registering.
  • Students must participate under the supervision of a teacher. Proctor controls will be used to control the release of the competition to limit integrity concerns. We ask that students compete from school; however, if, due to pandemic restrictions, your students are unable to compete from school, please contact us. We will review on a case by case basis to determine if competing remotely is possible. To compete remotely, students must receive our approval in advance.
  • Students will be required to complete an integrity statement and provide some personal information on the day of their competition. This requirement will be met by responding to the first set of questions of the competition. These questions are not included in the minimum number of questions that must be responded to in order to be eligible for awards and recognition.
  • Questions will be based on the following topics:
    • Income Management and Budgeting
    • Banking
    • Investing
    • Credit
    • Economics
    • Accounting
    • Home Ownership
    • Post-secondary Education Financing
    • Ethics and Financial Safety
  • Resources will be made available to students and their teachers to prepare to challenge the contest; however, we encourage students to explore other resources that may be available to them. We recommend the resources on the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada website and the Canadian Foundation for Econcomic Education website as great places to start.

Contest participants:

The FLC is open to Grade 9, 10, 11 and 12 students enrolled in a Canadian high school (excluding Quebec). Enrolment in (or prior completion of) a business course is recommended but not required.

Awards and recognition

To be eligible for awards and recognition, students are required to respond to all of the questions within the allotted time, be competing in the competition for their grade level for the first time, agree to the statements of integrity, and provide the personal information requested in the first section of the competition.

All eligible students who challenge the FLC will receive a levelled Certificate of Achievement. The certificate will recognize four levels of achievement – gold, silver, bronze and participant.

Teachers will receive a listing of their individual student participants by level. Individual student and school scores will not be provided. Rankings will only be provided for honour roll recognition.

Top performing students and schools:

  • The top performing eligible junior student (grades 9 - 10) and the top performing eligible senior student (grades 11 - 12), based on individual grades, will be recognized through prizes and awards.
  • An honour roll (top 10) of eligible students in each of Grades 9, 10, 11 and 12, based on individual grades, will be recognized through prizes and awards.
  • An honour roll (top 3) of eligible schools, based on average score, will be recognized through prizes and awards. A minimum of 10 eligible participants is required to be considered for this recognition.
  • See the Complete Contest Rules (below) for specific details of the prizes, eligibility requirements and conditions.

Registration and enrolment

While we welcome and encourage participation in our competition to support deeper learning of financial literacy concepts, we also offer some general resources to support classroom learning, to develop a student’s skills and knowledge to make responsible financial decisions with competence and confidence, and to inspire further studies in the areas of business, accounting and finance. You can access these resources at https://uwsaf.mobius.cloud. These resources are always available and no registration is required.

To access additional competition preparation resources and challenge the FLC, registration is required. Secondary School teachers must first register to create a "class" in order to receive a unique access code that will allow individual students to register. Students will use that code to create their own unique login. Once registered, teachers and students can work together to prepare to challenge the FLC.

You can register (during the registration period) your class for the competition at https://uwsaf.mobius.cloud. All students who register within this class will be expected to compete on the same day during the same time window. Teachers who have students who want to compete during a different window of time can do so by registering more than once. Please take note of the registration deadlines. Teachers must register their class or club by 12pm ET on the last Friday before the competition period begins. Students must register by 5pm ET on the day before the competition period begins.

Teachers are responsible for distributing their unique class access code to students who meet the eligibility requirements for the competition and who are members of their school. Teachers must notify the School of Accounting and Finance at saf-flc@uwaterloo.ca immediately if they become aware of unauthorized access or a student’s situation changes and they are no longer eligible.

Complete contest rules