The activities of the Finnish Youth Parliament are intended for students in the upper level of comprehensive school. The goal of these activities is to encourage students to get involved and have their say on matters that are important to young people. The activities began in 1998.

Their aim is to inspire students to get involved in making a positive difference to things that are important to their generation.

In most schools, the Youth Parliament activities are the responsibility of the teacher of History and Citizenship Education. The activities usually take the form of a Parliamentary Club or as a part of the student union activities. The Youth Parliament work can also be incorporated into the curriculum. Optional courses and youth council activities are all used as the setting for Youth Parliament activities in schools and in municipalities.

The Youth Parliament is inspiring for teachers and students alike!

Club events 

A total of four club events were organised. The themes included democracy education and young people’s involvement in schools, social themes important for young people and the types of interdisciplinary learning modules containing social themes that young people would like to see in education. The theme of one of the club events was media education and responsible journalism. We pursued cooperation with various ministries (Ministry of Education and Culture and Ministry of Justice), the Union of Local Youth Councils in Finland (Allianssi), the Council for Mass Media and the Päivälehti Museum. The students’ travel costs were covered by Development Centre Opinkirjo, so all the events had students from different parts of Finland. Slightly less than 200 students from approximately fifty schools participated in the events.

Virtual events were held together with MPs and ministers during 2020 – 2021. Slightly less than 1500 students participated in the events.

Virtual events were held together with MPs during  2024.  Slightly less than 6 600  students participated in the events.

Activating materials 

Preparing e-material for session day published in 2024.

Social media

The Youth Parliament’s website (in Finnish) is located at the address https://www.eduskunta.fi/FI/NuortenEduskunta/NuortenParlamentti/Sivut/default.aspx 

There is a blog Nuorten Parlamentti used by the Youth Parliament and a Facebook page. Tweets were requested using the hashtag #nuortenparlamentti.

Session day of the Youth Parliament 12 April 2024

The plenary session of the Youth Parliament assembled at the Parliament Building on Friday 12 April 2024 at 12 noon. A total of 199 student representatives, 139 student journalists and 145 teachers from 149 upper comprehensive schools all around Finland attended the session.

On the session day, each student representative also learned about one of the following committees: the Grand Committee, the Transport and Communications Committee, the Education and Culture Committee, ​The Foreign Affairs Committee , the Committee for the Future and the Environment Committee. Young people were introduced to the committees’ duties and role in parliamentary work. However, most important were the questions asked by them and discussions with the Members of Parliament present representing the committees.

The student journalists participated in a Politiikko nonstop event in which they had the chance to ask questions from Members of Parliament. A Member of Parliament from each parliamentary group was present to answer the young people’s questions.

The plenary session was chaired by the Speaker of Parliament, Jussi Halla-aho.  Twelve ministers from the Government of Finland were present and answered questions from the student representatives. Of all the submitted questions, 40 had been picked for the plenum session agenda, and there was time to address 25 of these.  The minutes of plenum. 

Young people had the chance to have their say on the plenary session agenda. About half of the questions were picked for the agenda based on a vote; the other half were selected at the Parliament. The following criteria are considered when putting the agenda together: regions (questions from each electoral district in proportion to the attending clubs), the sectors of the ministers represented, gender and language of the students presenting the questions.

The members of parliamentary clubs submitted a total of 159 questions for the plenary session.

The topics of the questions were divided between the ministers as follows

The plenary session was followed by a reception by the Speaker of Parliament for attendees of the Youth Parliament and invited guests. The reception gave the young people the opportunity for active discussion with the ministers and Members of Parliament present.

Foto: Finnish Parliament