Teacher's booklet - the Generation ?uro Students' Award

Generation €uro
Students’ Award
1. Teachers
2. Rounds
Objective
Your role
Round 1: online quiz
The Generation €uro Students’ Award aims to help secondary
school students understand monetary policy and how
it relates to the economy as a whole. They will gain an insight
into the role of a central bank by learning about the function
of monetary policy instruments, in particular interest rate
decisions, and by using some of the data available to the
Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB)
each month. The competition should also raise students’
awareness of the Eurosystem and deepen their knowledge
of the world of finance.
Overview
The competition consists of three rounds and will end with
a European award event at the ECB in Frankfurt am Main.
Participants
The competition is aimed at students aged 16 to 19 who live
in a euro area country. Their ages may vary slightly from
country to country (depending on the national education
system), but they should be in their final years of secondary
education. All students are entitled to take part, irrespective
of what they are studying.
Students will be required to form teams of five and to
nominate a teacher to accompany them. Each team should
come from the same school, with the teachers and students
themselves deciding on membership. Each team should
also nominate one of its members as team leader. The
teacher should work at the school taking part in the
competition and teach at least one member of the team.
The composition of the team should not be changed
during the competition unless extraordinary circumstances,
such as illness, prevent this.
Rounds
Round 1. Online quiz: the quiz consists of three levels –
beginners, intermediate and expert – with a total of
30 questions. Students must answer the questions as a
team. The teams with the best scores will be invited to
participate in the second round (essay round).
Round 2. Essay: in this round, teachers have to actively
coach their students. Each team will be asked to assess the
economic conditions in the euro area and the inflation
outlook on the basis of some of the data available to the
Governing Council of the ECB. Teams should make an
assessment and then decide on the level at which to set
the key interest rate. They will need to explain their
decision in an essay of no more than 2,000 words. The
essays must be uploaded to the Generation €uro website
(www.generationeuro.eu).
Round 3. Presentation: in this round, five of the best
teams from the essay round will be invited to give a
presentation on their interest rate decision to a jury of
experts, who will then choose the winning team. In both the
essay and the presentation, the interest rate decision should
reflect the economic circumstances at that time, i.e. it should
be a real-time decision.
Your main task is to be the team coordinator, teaching
and guiding your students through each round of the
competition, in particular the essay round, in order to ensure
their work is consistent and of a good standard. If your team
is successful, you should also accompany them to the ECB
for the final presentation round.
Resources
You will have access to a number of resources to guide
and support your students through each round of the
competition. Your main resources will be:
■■
the teacher’s booklet (the very document you are
reading now), which sets out the rules and organisational
procedures for the competition;
■■
the teachers’ day, held at the ECB, where you can learn
more about the organisational procedures and ask any
questions you may have. You will also be given the
information you require to guide your students
through the competition. The event is for all teachers
participating in the competition;
■■
the Generation €uro website www.generationeuro.eu,
which provides all competition-related information and
materials to make it easier for you to teach the core
concepts of monetary policy-making;
■■
materials from the ECB, such as press clippings, reports,
etc.
If students are taking the quiz in order to enter the
competition, they must first register to ensure that their
scores are saved. After registering, they can only do the quiz
once. The quiz consists of 30 questions: ten easy questions,
ten harder ones and ten difficult ones. The 30 questions will
be selected at random from a pool each time a student
starts the quiz. Quiz scores, as well as the electronic
certificates, can also be shared via social networking tools.
The teams with the best scores can proceed to the next
round and will be asked to register for that round. When
doing so, they will be required to enter a name for their team
and supply the names and e-mail addresses of all the team
members (including the accompanying teacher), as well as
the name of the school that they are representing.
Round 2: essay
Once teams of five students and their accompanying
teachers have been registered, they will be sent some
general information on the essay that they will be asked to
write. It will refer to the economic and monetary data used
as a basis for setting the interest rate and explain the
students’ task. This information will also be available on the
Generation €uro website.
In the essay, the teams must clearly state their interest rate
decision, as well as how they came to that decision, based
on their assessment of the key economic indicators
available, the economic and monetary conditions in the
euro area and the inflation outlook. The teams should refer
to the website for all the information they need for their task.
The length of the essay must not exceed 2,000 words. The
essay may be marked down if it is longer. All team members
must be involved in writing the essay, which should reflect
the opinion of the majority of the team.
Teams must upload their essays to the Generation €uro
website. The essays will be assessed by a jury of ECB experts,
who will then select teams to proceed to the next round.
Those teams will be notified accordingly by the ECB.
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