20th October: European Statistics Day

Population
Teachers and students from the second and third degrees of secondary school can register in the European Statistics Competition. This competition is organised by Statistiek Vlaanderen, IWEPS (Wallonia) and Statbel, the Belgian statistical office, in the context of the European Statistics Day on 20th October.

First statistics competition in Belgium

Regional and federal statistical offices launch together a new competition

Starting today, 19th October 2018, teachers and students from the second and third degrees of secondary school can register in the European Statistics Competition. This competition is organised by Statistiek Vlaanderen, IWEPS (Wallonia) and Statbel, the Belgian statistical office, in the context of the European Statistics Day on 20th October.

The European Statistics Competition is an initiative of Eurostat, the European statistical office. Its goal is to test the knowledge of the students, and to increase their understanding of public statistics. The Competition has been organised during the last school year in 11 European countries, with 11,000 participants. Two Finnish teams won the first prize. Belgium will also participate this school year. Eurostat’s press release on this subject can be found below this press release.

Students participate per degree, in groups of 1 to 3 students. They are supervised by their teacher. “The Competition is different from a number of its equivalents”, according to the organising statistical offices. “It is really about team work, and the Competition is centrally organised for all Belgian language communities. Furthermore, all teachers can register their students. The competition does not depend on the subject taught. Teachers and students can come from various fields. It also does not matter whether your school provides general education, technical education or vocational education. We hope that students and teachers from all over the country will participate.”

The competition is partly online. The second phase consists in a practical exercise, where students have to prove that they can interpret statistics and present the results in an understandable manner.

You can register on https://www.esc2019.eu/

In the context of the European Statistics Day, Statbel also launches two publications:

  • 1. Key Figures 2018: the main figures and statistics about Belgium. The Belgian population figure, the state of agriculture, the index and inflation, economic indicators, real estate figures, transport statistics, the labour market, poverty figures, the income and consumption habits of Belgian households and many other themes are presented in a user-friendly way. You can download the publication in pdf or ask for a paper version (available in French, Dutch and German).
  • 2. An update of the publication “The life of women and men in Europe”. This interactive tool shows you different data sets. The publication was drawn up by Eurostat, and published by Statbel in Dutch, French and German.

 


Ready, set… calculate!esc.png

Registration opens for the European Statistics Competition 2019

For the European Day of Statistics, Eurostat and the EU Member States set out to celebrate curiosity and promote the awareness of sound statistics by launching the European Statistics Competition (ESC) 2019. As of today, teachers and their students aged 14-18 can register for the competition in 15 EU Member States.

What is the ESC?

The ESC is a school-based competition that allows 14 to 18 year-olds to compete against each other by solving statistical problems, searching for data and producing statistical analyses. The aim is to promote statistical literacy among the students, while encouraging teachers to use new educational materials based on official statistics.

As the competition reflects the different curricula across Europe, it is split into two phases:

  • (1) the national phase, during which the best and brightest compete against their peers in their own country using questions corresponding to their studies, and
  • (2) a European phase, where the finalists represent their countries at European level and produce videos on a statistical topic.

Deja-vu: was there not already an ESC?

Yes! In October 2017, Eurostat and 11 National Statistical Institutes jointly launched the first European Statistics Competition of its kind. Over 11 000 students took part with the top 180 students qualifying for the final European round. The finalists then produced two-minute videos on why official statistics matter in our societies today.

A European selection committee helped Eurostat and the National Statistical Institutes choose the winning teams. After lengthy deliberations, two contributions stood out for their compelling, fun and accurate storytelling content. Why not take a look at the winning videos.

What has changed for 2019?

Two main differences exist compared with the 2018 version. Firstly, four new countries are entering the competition. This means that in 2019, students from Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain will be competing against each other.

The second difference is the introduction of a public choice award. To help decide, which team will be sent to the European finals, the EU Member States will ask the public to vote for their favourite national team.

But first, to make sure that there are again excellent contributions to choose from, please help us spread the word: registrations for all teams is now open!

For more information, go to www.esc2019.eu