AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON THE IMPACT OF EDUCATIONAL INITIATIVES ON DIGITAL FINANCIAL LITERACY AMONG RURAL YOUTH IN GUJARAT

Abstract

This paper studies how educational programs can lead to an improvement in the digital financial literacy of rural youth in the Ahmedabad region of Gujarat. Using 100 rural youth and 100 educators, data from this study analyzes the association of the quality of the program with access to educational resources and digital financial service adoption. Educational interventions greatly improve digital financial literacy, which leads to even more robust economic empowerment. The results also confirm that access to the educational resources enables rural youth to adopt digital financial services. A comparative analysis through the Mann-Whitney U Test is utilized to point out differences in educators' and rural youth's perceptions about program effectiveness. The study concluded that well-designed, accessible education initiatives are thus a strongly needed approach for both bridging the digital divide and economic development in rural areas. However, on the other hand, the research also mentioned about programs needing to be adapted to the dynamic needs of rural communities over time.