more to university studies. by that i mean, first, that in courses dealing with economic topics, the material needs to be handled to an adequate extent from the economic angle. after all, learning a subject essentially means approaching a given problem methodically. second, courses with a similar content should be offered in schools throughout germany ’ s federal states. because school pupils who are about to enter university should not have completed levels of class content which differ fundamentally from one federal state to the next. and it goes without saying that the same applies to teacher training. no one would want to learn spanish from a teacher who obtained all of his or her knowledge on the subject in two afternoon training sessions. the bar therefore needs to be raised when it comes to training economics teachers, too. 4. examples that are catching on of course, fostering an appreciation of economic education does not stop at the school gates. extracurricular initiatives are also needed. for example, the german young researchers contest ( bundeswettbewerb “ jugend forscht ” ) awards prizes to talented youngsters in the natural sciences and in the working world. why not in the field of economics as well? allow me to make a specific suggestion today, namely to introduce a nationwide contest for young people researching economic and financial topics. indeed, there also needs to be input from beyond the confines of the school system, be it in terms of talent promotion or “ economic education for all ”. because whether we like it or not, the lack of economic education is making itself felt in all spheres of society. the bundesbank takes the matter of economic education extremely seriously. after all, monetary policy can only be successfully communicated if the general public have a basic grasp of terms such as inflation or interest. here in north rhine - westphalia alone, the bundesbank last year ran almost 300 economic education events which attracted around 7, 500 participants. throughout germany, in 2016 we held some 1, 600 events, with over 53, 000 people taking part. 8 to reach out to young people in particular, the bundesbank offers a wide array of educational materials that are designed for use in a school classroom setting. these materials range from offerings for kindergartens and primary schools – for instance, play and counting money or the “ kinderfunkkolleg ”, a money - themed course of audio lectures for children, which we developed in cooperation with the frankfurt - based tv and radio 4 / 7 bis central bankers'speeches

the setting of further restrictions on the use of internal models to measure credit risk. these restrictions would consist in limiting modelling of the so - called “ low - default portfolios ” for which there is an insufficient history of default to be able to use advanced models. this would be the case, for example, of portfolios of banks, specialised lending or large corporations. in addition, in portfolios deemed suitable for modelling, minimum levels would be established for parameters ( for example, probability of default and loss given default ) so as to rule out abnormally low estimated values. lastly, the basel committee has also published for consultation the possibility of setting a floor or minimum values for rwas resulting from internal models. not only the advisability of this is being discussed, but also, if approved, the design and calibration of these minimum values. essentially, it would be a question of limiting to a certain percentage the maximum capital saving that institutions may obtain by modelling risk on their own account, rather than measuring it using the standardised approach. conceptually, and provided it is correctly designed and calibrated, a floor of this kind can be a useful tool in the aim to reduce unwarranted and unwanted variation in rwas : it would set for all institutions the same maximum level of saving obtainable using models, and it would help to ensure a minimum desired level of capital for a specific level of risk, and all without relinquishing risk sensitivity. in the process of finalisation of basel iii, the committee has also stated its intention to improve the standardised approaches for credit and operational risk. broadly speaking, the aim is also to make them more risk - sensitive. the standardised approaches are important per se, since they are used by a great number of banks worldwide ; but as restrictions on the use of internal models are introduced they will become even more important. thus, discontinuing the use of internal models to measure operational risk would mean that all institutions, irrespective of size, business model or type of business, would have to use the same standardised approach to measure operational risk. measuring such a heterogeneous risk using a standardised approach clearly presents considerable difficulties. 6 / 7 the proposal published for public consultation by the basel committee has a series of limitations that must be remedied before it is approved. regarding the use of the standardised approach to measure credit risk, the committee is striving to make it more risk - sensitive