Marlene Street Forrest, who retired as managing director of the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE), launched a business consultancy whose first public project involves a stock market game for schoolchildren.
The initiative is about “planting the seeds of an investment culture”, said Street Forrest at the launch held virtually on Wednesday.
There are 427,000 investor accounts hosted at the Jamaica Central Securities Depository up to late 2025, according to the JSE data. On the surface, that equates to 15 per cent of the population, but that figure is lower as some individual investors have multiple accounts. Street Forrest retired from the JSE in September 2025 and was integral in growing the accounts from under 150,000 in 2015.
Starting on Thursday (October 15), students in grades four to six can buy and sell shares and manage virtual portfolios in the game, which Street Forrest’s firm, Street Forrest Business Consultancy, is taking over. The firm is running it with Wizdom CRM, which provides the platform. The programme combines simulated trading, quizzes and artificial intelligence (AI) to teach investing and financial literacy.
Eight schools have registered: St Teresa’s Alpha Primary, Holy Childhood Prep, Avondale Prep, along with St Richard’s, Half-Way Tree, Excelsior, St Benedict and Harbour View primary schools. Registration remains open to schools and individual students.
Street Forrest said the aim is to move financial education earlier in life. “I’ve long believed that financial literacy should not begin when someone receives his first salary,” she said. “It should begin in the classroom, when young minds are curious, receptive and developing the habits that will guide them through lives.”
She said the game will require students to exercise “discipline, patience, research, judgment and appreciation of what risks are”, while exposing them to the decisions real investors face.
She also tied the project to efforts to widen participation in Jamaica’s capital market, saying that starting early could reduce the repeated interventions needed to teach adults about investing. “What we are trying to do also is to help our students appreciate the difference between just being a consumer … and becoming owners of productive assets,” she said.
Orlando Powell, chief executive of Wizdom CRM, said students will use the platform through quizzes and simulated trading. The quizzes are meant to reinforce knowledge of the local market, while trading lets students practise what they learn. The dashboard has been localised so students see the Jamaica Stock Exchange when they log in.
The programme covers profit and loss, percentages, data interpretation, chart reading, dividends, risk management, and buying and selling securities, Powell said. Three AI teammates, Maven, Isabella and Mr Rabbit, will interact with students by voice and text-to-speech, using examples involving candies, pizza and cookie jars to explain financial concepts.
Schools could devote 30 to 45 minutes a week to the game, possibly through a stock market game club, Powell said. Automated reports will let schools track student performance.
Street Forrest said a key benefit is that children can make choices, see the results and learn from mistakes. “What if I do this?” she said, describing how the game shows students how a choice affects the outcome.
Jamaican securities will get greater emphasis, she said, but students will also be able to trade securities on global markets.
Cash, certificates and other prizes will be offered, with recognition planned for students, teachers and schools, as well as for effort and participation in quizzes.
neville.graham@gleanerjm.com
