Abstract

Introduction
Statistical offices are major players in the information society worldwide. It is therefore important to focus on statistical literacy in all levels of society. Making statistics more available, and ensuring they are better understood and used, leads to better decisions. We give you a more in-depth understanding about our most important offer used among children and young people.
Statbel Academy
Statbel Academy is the learning platform of Statistics Belgium. With Statbel Academy, Statbel is reaching out to education, and wants to support teachers.
Statbel Junior is a website designed for children and young people in the last years of primary education and in the first years of secondary education. The website starts from two simple variables: municipality and age. Those two data allow you to dive into statistics about your municipality in a very accessible way through the topics of population, population evolution, nationalities, road accidents and agriculture. The website includes a toolbox, where basic statistical concepts covered in the topics are explored in more detail.
The European Statistics Competition is a competition for students in the third grade of secondary education, testing in various ways the knowledge of statistical concepts, analytical skills and communication skills in an online competition.
On the YouTube channel @StatbelAcademy, videos provide more in-depth explanations on how specific statistics are calculated. You will learn about the calculation of causes of death, population trends and life expectancy, and how to interpret them even better. A unique look behind the scenes given by Statbel statisticians.
Statistics Belgium is a partner in the EMOS, a network of master's programmes that aims to give statisticians sufficient knowledge and skills to start their professional careers in European official statistics. In Belgium, KU Leuven has had the official “EMOS label” since the 2017-2018 academic year.
The “Key Figures” contain a complete statistical overview of Belgium, with the latest figures in a variety of topics. Data on health, demography, economy, labour market, social indicators such as the risk of poverty or the consumption behaviour of Belgians, play an essential role to make informed political decisions.
Statbel also publishes the “Key Figures on Agriculture”. This publication provides an overview of the current situation and most recent evolutions in agriculture in the broad sense.
Statbel provides a number of datasets for teachers to test analytical skills in students. Accompanying the datasets, Statistics Belgium provides a number of test questions adapted to the target group.
Conclusion
Statbel Academy is a starting point in the discovery of public statistics. The statisticians at Statbel are happy to introduce classes to our products, tools, or to a comprehensive set of figures, concepts and statistics to introduce students to the wonderful world of statistics.
By continuing to focus on statistical literacy, including among children and young people, Statistics Belgium wants to contribute positively to a better-informed society in which citizens build up the necessary knowledge to deal critically with data and figures, and so make well-informed decisions.