European Statistics Competition
Information on the 2023-2024 edition
Luxembourg is participating in the European Statistics Competition (ESC) 2023. This competition is organized by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, and aims to promote students' curiosity and interest in statistics. The ESC is aimed at secondary school students, who challenge each other by solving statistical exercises, hunting for information and producing analyses.
First national, then European, this competition invites each participating team to work in groups to test their theoretical knowledge, to take an interest in the data produced by the actors of official statistics and to discover or rediscover their societal stake!
Why participate in the European Statistics Competition?
In the age of "fake news" and infobesity, it becomes crucial to understand the numbers, but also how they are obtained. Trust in statistics has never been more important than today.
With this in mind, Eurostat, STATEC and the other European national statistical institutes are organizing this competition aimed at a young audience.
The competition aims to:
- promote curiosity and interest in statistics among students
- show the role of statistics to students and teachers in various aspects of society
- encourage teachers to use new materials for teaching statistics by promoting the use of real data and search for applications of acquired statistical knowledge
- promote teamwork and collaboration to achieve common goals
A two-stage competition
This competition takes place in two stages:
- the national phase : a first phase at the Luxembourg level, organized by STATEC with the support of SCRIPT. This phase consists of a web questionnaire and a photo contest;
- the European phase, organized by Eurostat: the two best teams of the two age categories will be able to participate in the European phase.
However, it is also possible to only participate in the photo contest. The registration is done by email at esc@statec.etat.lu. There will be prizes to be won, but the teams will not be able to qualify to enter the European phase of the competition.
Organisation of the competition
The rules
The complete rules of the Luxembourg stage of the European Statistics 2023-2024 competition are available here (Pdf, 809 Kb).
Who can participate and how?
Participation in the national phase of the European Statistics Competition is open to all secondary-age students who are studying at any officially recognized educational center of Luxembourg.
Students will participate in teams of 1 to 3 pupils. All students of the team should belong to the same school and category. Each team should have a teacher from their center acting as the tutor of the team, who will supervise their work.
There is no limitation on the number of participants / teams from the same center nor on teams supervised by the same tutor. Students are not allowed to participate in more than one team.
The participation of each team will take place in one of two categories:
Category A: students in the last two years of secondary school, aged approximately 16-18 years.
Category B: students of secondary education, aged approximately 14-16 years old
Teachers who wish to participate in the European Statistics Competition with their students should register their team online on the dedicated platform.
The assignments
The national phase consists of two assignments.
The first consists of a web questionnaire with three different parts of ten questions each:
• the first tests knowledge of key statistical concepts
• the second tests the ability to find data
• and the third tests the ability to interpret a statistical document
This web questionnaire will be available between December 18, 2023 and February 16, 2024.
The second test consists of a photo contest that combines the art of photography with statistical data to show how statistics can improve our daily lives.
Participation in the photo contest is possible between October 20, 2023 and February 16, 2024.
Subject of the photo contest "Better lives through statistics"
How can statistics improve my life? How can statistics help me in my daily life? How can I use statistics to make better decisions?
This topic can be approached in two ways.
Option 1: Students choose a topic from their daily lives and create a poster or collage demonstrating the usefulness of statistics in this area. Here is an example (Png, 178 Kb).
Option 2: They first select existing data and choose a subject from everyday life to create the poster or collage. Here is an example (Png, 125 Kb).
The photo must be accompanied by a title and a text of no more than 150 words.
The photo, with a minimum image resolution of 2481 x 3510, should be sent with the explanatory text to esc@statec.etat.lu.
The European phase consists of a single assignment.
More information about the assignment of the European phase will soon be available here.
Evaluation system
In order to proceed to the European phase, a minimum of 60% of the points must be obtained in both assignments. The final score is the 50/50 weighted average of the score obtained in the two assignments.
The winners of the national phase will be ranked according to their final scores in ascending order in their respective age category.
Theoretically, in each age category, there will therefore be 3 winning teams*.
The best 2 teams of each category are eligible to participate in the European phase.
*Subject to having 3 teams that have obtained a minimum of 60% of the points in both assignments for each age category
Prizes
The top three winning teams in the national phase, three from category A and three from category B, will receive numerous high-tech prizes.
A special prize will be awarded to the team that submitted the best photo in the photo contest. This means that in theory a team can win two prizes: one prize for their final ranking in the national phase and one prize for the best photo. This prize will be a single prize regardless of the age category of the participants.
A thank you prize will be awarded to the tutors of the winning teams of the final ranking and the special prize winning team. However, a tutor can only win one prize, even if they have tutored multiple winning teams.
Registrations for the edition 2023-2024 closed on December 15th, 2023.
The calendar
National phase
- 20th October 2023: Opening of Registration
- 20th October 2023: Start of photo contest
- 15th December 2023 (23:59 hours): Closing of registrations
- 18th December 2023: Publication of web questionnaire
- 16th February 2024 (23:59 hours): Deadline for submitting national phase assignments 1 and 2
- 11th March 2024: Announcement of national phase winners
European phase
- 15th December 2023: Publication of the topic for the assignment of the European phase
- 13th May 2024: Deadline assignment European phase
- 6th June 2024: Public announcement of the winners
- Between 26th and 28th June 2024: award ceremony
Videos of the teams that participated in the European phase during the 2022-2023 edition
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