The team “Ansofi” from the secondary school Emmaüs Aalter wins the first prize in the European Statistics Competition, in the age category 14-16. This was announced today by Eurostat, the European statistical office. In the age category 16-18, the winner is the team “Radiaator”, from Estonia. In total, 12,000 students from 14 European countries took part in the European Statistics Competition. A European jury chose the two winners from more than 50 participating teams.

Watch here the winning film of “Ansofi”

The European Statistics Competition was organised this school year for the first time in Belgium. The organisation was coordinated by Statbel, the Belgian statistical office, in collaboration with Statistiek Vlaanderen and Iweps (Wallonia). A second edition will follow in the school year 2019-2020. After a Belgian phase, with an award ceremony on 15th March, 4 teams went on to the European phase.

The winning team “Ansofi” also ranked first in the national phase of the competition, among Dutch-speaking teams from the second degree of secondary education. In addition to the team from Aalter, the team “Teamsnor” from the Sint-Norbertusinstituut in Duffel (2nd degree) and the teams “Offcharts” and “Transalpit” from the European School Brussels IV (3rd degree) also participated in the European finale.

In the Belgian phase, participants were given online tests on their statistical knowledge, and a task to correctly analyse and interpret statistics. In the European phase of the competition, the participants were given an extra challenge: they had to produce a video on the theme “Europe reflected in statistics”. All finalists from the Belgian phase took up the challenge. A Belgian jury chose four teams who, in the European phase, competed with their video against their peers from 14 other countries.

The European Statistics Competition promotes curiosity and interest as well as use of official statistics among students and encourages teachers to use these statistics in their lessons. The competition was divided in two age groups: 14 to 16 and 16 to 18. The teams from Belgium and Estonia were awarded the first prize among more than 50 videos.

The arguments of the European jury are the following:

• Team Ansofi (Belgium) takes first prize in the junior age group (14-16). Their creative video departs from a simple idea: what will the lives of young people look like in 10, 20, 30 years. Using official statistics, the students take us through their estimated futures with regard to the labour market and health care sector. The jury loved the team’s personal and extremely well-executed approach.
• In the senior age group (16-18), the first prize goes to team Radiaator (Estonia). Their video effectively compares Estonia to its European neighbours in a fresh and extremely well executed animated production. Taking into account the clever visuals and overall message, the jury was compelled to rank it first.

The two winning teams are invited to the award ceremony at Eurostat in Luxembourg, on Tuesday 11th June 2019.