Official statistics through the eyes of students and teachers—the European Statistics Competition

Abstract

Statistical literacy has become more and more important as the amount of available information grows. Providing people with tools that allow them to critically evaluate the information they receive is crucial in the world we live, especially for the youth. This, however, is not an easy task. Being capable of discerning which sources, data, information, analysis etc. are more reliable than others requires many times ‘not-so-light’ knowledge in traditionally ‘hard subjects’ like Mathematics, Economics or Statistics.

In this context it is a good idea to offer students a friendly approach to these fields. Activities in which pupils see real data they can work with might help them to better understand what they have learnt and even to lose that fear of statistics. On the other hand, for official statistics bodies it is desirable to get known as reliable sources of data.

Initiatives like the European Statistics Competition (ESC) pursues these two objectives of being made known among teachers and young public, and showing pupils that working with statistical data is feasible. The fact of being a competition at European level may encourage students to join and do their best, and thus their interest in statistics will grow.