Becoming Financially Literate - 2

Why is financial literacy so important when our parents could manage without it?
There are many reasons for it, but for me the most critical reason is to prevent an unnecessary and expensive investment option being sold to an investor. To avoid the feeling that you get when you realize that your hard-earned money has been invested in a scheme that is making money for someone else, and not for you. That's the biggest reason why we need to have more awareness about investments. And the way advertising works, the way commissions are offered, the way investments are designed - it's just too easy for the uninformed investor to invest in the wrong scheme. There simply has to be better awareness all around! Period.

Slowly but surely, decision-makers are realizing that financial education should start early - right at the school level. Leaving it for adults to pick it up later doesn't work. But if we include financial education as a subject in school, care should be taken that it is practical, simple, and understandable. That it doesn't become another subject that children study to get marks and then forget about it. There seems to be some noise building on this and I won't be surprised if the government introduces it in some form sooner than later. Keeping my fingers crossed on this one.

Coming back to the subject of financial literacy for adults, I am still not closer to finding the answer to my question: what is the best way to go about imparting finacial education at a mass scale without compromising on its efficacy? I'm listing down the options I can think of with their respective strengths (+) and weaknesses (-):

1. Newspaper articles: Unstructured(-), Needs basics to be clear to understand news items (-)
2. Websites on investments: Unstructured (-), difficult to find, reach is limited (-), Free (+)
3. Magazines: Structured(+), expensive (-), needs basics to be clear (-)
4. Books on the subject: Structured (+), affordable (+), difficult to find the right book (-), needs high degree of motivation to find it and read it (-)
5. Classes: Structured (+), difficult to find (-), needs high degree of motivation (-), could be expensive (-)
6. TV Shows: Structured (-), free (+), possibility to create great content (+), need motivation to track it (-)
7. SMS: Structured (+), affordable (+), limited content (-), easy to digest (+)
8. Learning through CDs: Structured (+), Affordable (+), Great content (+), difficult to find (-), needs high level of motivation (-)

Right now, financial education or content related to it are available across these mediums. Of the lot, financial magazines, financial newspapers, and tv shows are reaching out to the most people I think. Although there are a few good websites on the subject, and they deserve a special mention for their evangelical zeal, most of them are unstructured and tackle the subject in a random fashion to actually rely on them as a source of educating oneself. While there are books on the subject, their availability across cities and towns, in the language you need is limited. Financial education through SMS seems like an exciting idea to me (I'm thinking of starting something of my own) but the content planning needs to be done carefully.

The best bet seems Learning through CDS - but again, it involves technology so its spread seems limited. TV would be the ideal medium because of its reach, but it's expensive to deliver. There are some shows that are already there - I recollect one where Monika Halan appears on it - but it's delivered in too quick a style to be considered a learning program. The other problem about TV is that it's not interactive. So you have to live with your doubts and questions.

The ideal solutions should have the following features:
1. Wide availability (geographically) - in as many languagues as possible
2. Easy to deliver - through a medium that is available with the majority
3. Interactive - have doubts, get them cleared
4. Affordable - free if possible!
5. Easy to understand content - it should be designed well

Any one has any suggestions?