Yrityskylä: Finland's Me and My City programme
Yrityskylä, known internationally as Me and My City, is a Finnish learning module where sixth and ninth graders spend a day running a miniature city: working a job, earning wages, paying bills and acting as consumers and citizens.
- Yrityskylä was launched in 2010 and is run by Junior Achievement Finland (Nuori Yrittäjyys / JA Finland).
- Around 85 to 90 percent of all Finnish sixth and ninth graders take part in a Yrityskylä learning day.
- The sixth-grade version is built as a miniature schoolchildren's society: pupils work in a profession, earn a wage, and act as consumers and citizens within it.
- A 2024 University of Vaasa study found the game-based programme measurably improves children's financial skills, and Yrityskylä was separately recognised as Finland's leading promoter of financial literacy in 2024.
How a Yrityskylä day works
In the weeks before their visit, a class works through lessons on money, work and entrepreneurship prepared by trained teachers. On the day itself, pupils travel to a purpose-built miniature town, each staffed with shops, a bank, a media company and other real-world roles, where every child works an assigned job, earns simulated wages, and spends, saves or pays tax on that income as a citizen of the mini-city.
Why it sits well alongside Finnish K-5 and lower-secondary pedagogy
Yrityskylä extends two habits already common in Finnish classrooms: learning by doing rather than only from a textbook, and treating transversal, cross-subject skills, working with others, managing money, understanding a workplace, as seriously as any single subject.
- Weeks of classroom preparation before the visit
- A full day working a real job in a miniature city
- Earning, spending, saving and paying simulated tax
- Independent evaluation showing measurable gains in financial skills
What schools outside Finland can take from it
A school does not need Yrityskylä's physical mini-city to borrow its core idea: give children a short, structured period of real economic role-play, running a class shop, budgeting a mock project, or simulating a payday, rather than teaching money skills only through worksheets. Schools building a broader life-skills programme can pair this with Finland's approach to entrepreneurship education.
Children remember a wage they earned and a bill they paid far longer than a worksheet about what a wage or a bill is.
Frequently asked questions
What does Yrityskylä mean?
Yrityskylä translates roughly as 'enterprise village', and the programme is marketed internationally under the name Me and My City.
Which age groups take part in Yrityskylä?
Sixth graders (around age 12) and ninth graders (around age 15) each have their own version of the programme, run by Junior Achievement Finland.
Is Yrityskylä compulsory in Finnish schools?
It is not formally compulsory nationwide, but participation is very high, with around 85 to 90 percent of Finnish sixth and ninth graders taking part each year.
Can schools outside Finland run something similar?
Yes. Schools can adapt the underlying idea, structured, hands-on economic role-play, without needing Yrityskylä's own physical mini-city infrastructure.
Related reading
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