KEPALA BATAS, Oct 1 — The Education Ministry (MoE) and Higher Education Ministry (MoHE) can play their roles in giving early exposure on financial literacy to students and university students from the early stage.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said his office will be discussing with both ministries so that a campaign on the practice of saving and stock investment can be further expanded at the level of educational institutions and higher education.

"Maybe selected teachers could be given training so that the awareness could be passed down. Teachers and teaching staff could be given responsibilities to trickle knowledge to the students.

"I will urged Penang students, teachers and community to benefit from the Malaysian Unit Trust Week (MSAM) 2023,” he said when opening MSAM 2023 here today.

The MSAM theme this year, ‘Bijak Melabur, Santai Berhibur’, reflects the continuous efforts of Permodalan Nasional Bhd (PNB) to raise awareness on financial literacy with interesting approaches.

In the meantime, he said the public’s knowledge of stock investment is relatively weak in the country where many individuals invest based on sentiment rather than the capabilities of a company, but this is not much different from other countries.

"I read a report in London a few years ago that was quite surprising because the level of knowledge there was also low among the population.

"Financial literacy is important and we can’t make the assumption that a person saves and invests in the stock market automatically has the latest information,” he said.

Therefore, he said the exposure needs to start at the school level so that they invest with confidence in the company’s integrity and good record.

In the meantime, Anwar also reminded companies, especially those related to the interests of Bumiputeras, not to deviate from the original goal of saving Bumiputeras against the priority to record profits for the company.

He also reminded companies based on Bumiputera interests not to take the easy way out by selling assets to save the company.

"But PNB is managed efficiently and we are proud it is able to survive and grow until today,” he said. — Bernama