Bodi FIN – a financial literacy project for primary school children

In the school year 2024/25, Banka Slovenije is, under the patronage Minister of Finance Klemen Boštjančič, organising a financial literacy project for primary school students Bodi FIN on the topic of financial security online. It is aimed at students from grade 4 to 9, who discuss various financial topics through the prism of their own financial security (online).

The course of the project

The project mentors receive worksheets, which they solve together with the students, for which all the students involved also receive a symbolic prize. Moreover, in agreement with Banka Slovenije, the mentors of the project also have the possibility to organize a financial workshop at school. The project will conclude in March 2025 with a school competition (the content of the competition will be directly related to the content of the solved worksheets), and the best contestants will be invited to a closing ceremony at Banka Slovenije on 18 April 2025.

Among the most successful contestants, we will draw up to 20 individuals, who will be awarded a two-day trip to Vienna with a visit of the Geldmuseum (Money Museum). Other winners will receive practical prizes.

Programme

• 4 October 2024: Open Doors Day and project launch

• October 2024 – March 2025: The mentors and the students solve the worksheets, submit them to Banka Slovenije and receive a symbolic prize; Financial literacy workshops in primary schools

• 22 November 2024: Financial Literacy Seminar for mentors

• 10 to 21 March 2025: School competition

• 18 April 2025: Award ceremony with the participation of the Governor of Banka Slovenije and the Minister of Finance

The project ran throughout the school year, and concluded with a ceremony where the attendees heard speeches by Finance Minister Klemen Boštjančič and Acting Governor Primož Dolenc. Both remarked that the students showed good knowledge of financial issues, and that projects of this kind help to increase the inclusion of this type of content in the education process.

Mentors were sent exercises to prepare their students for the competition, with extra help from workshops delivered at school by Banka Slovenije staff. The project concluded with a nationwide schools competition held during Global Money Week. Gold awards went to 92 of the 1,200 competition participants.

On 22 November 2024, we organised a full-day seminar on financial literacy, aimed at the project's mentors. We presented the role and functioning of Banka Slovenije and Ministry of Finance, addressed the area of price stability and discussed the trends of modern and cash payments. We also gave a special presentation on our work in the area of financial literacy. At the end, we also discovered the Atlas’s Secret in the Banka Slovenije Museum.

Banka Slovenije and the Ministry of Finance organised an Open Doors Day to officially launch two financial literacy projects. Under the patronage of the Minister of Finance Klemen Boštjančič, we organise the financial literacy project for primary school students named Bodi FIN, and we are continuing with the debate project Masters of the Digital Future under the patronage of the President of the Republic of Slovenia Nataša Pirc Musar.

At the Open Doors Day, the Governor of Banka Slovenije Boštjan Vasle and the Minister of Finance Klemen Boštjančič addressed the students and mentors. In his address, the Governor spoke about the dangers of money management, stressed the importance of financial literacy and said, "Financial security online is a skill, it is a special ability, it is something that will stay with you throughout your lives. Managing your own income early is a good basis for making the right financial decisions in adulthood."

In the second part of the event, the participants – we hosted 400 of them – got a closer look at a wide range of financial topics through an educational and entertaining programme.