I am delighted to be with you, now that the time has come to congratulate and award the students who excelled in the Statistics competition, as well as the teachers who accompanied, supported and guided them and whose efforts are being rewarded today.
In today's increasingly knowledge-based society, information handling skills are essential for the well-being and progress of citizens - and even for their survival at some point in time. Skills are needed to analyse, interpret and communicate information from data. In today's world, more and more information is available in all fields, and indeed is becoming accessible in the easiest and most direct way possible thanks to modern digital and other technologies. But this volume of information, in itself, not only may not mean anything, but can sometimes lead to confusion or even misinterpretation. For this reason, its processing and analysis becomes vitally important.
Statistical concepts tend to occupy an increasingly important role in mathematics curricula throughout the developed world. According to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, statistical education is becoming the focus of reformers in mathematics education as a vital aspect of civic education in democratic societies (NCTM 2000).
In this context, the need for the cultivation, through schools, especially secondary schools, of statistical reasoning has emerged and been explicitly articulated in recent years. In our time when an interdisciplinary approach has become the norm, not only in education but also more widely, it is also becoming clear that Mathematics and Statistics in particular is not just the valuable mathematical calculus, but a whole culture and philosophy, a way of thinking and calculating that contributes to the intellectual formation of human beings. It is for this reason that we no longer treat Statistics as only a separate and watertight field of knowledge and technical methods, but as a component in the formation of the physiognomy of an educated young person with the necessary knowledge and skills.
In science, technology and everyday life, uncertainty is a given. Briefly, one could say that the only certainty is uncertainty. Handling and accessing uncertainty, which is at the heart of mathematical analysis, is also what is at stake in addressing many key questions or even problematic situations. Probability theory and statistics as well as data representation and description techniques have been established to deal with it. In this context, the international PISA survey describes the need to broaden mathematical reasoning to include stochastic calculus and the need for tomorrow's citizens to make decisions under uncertainty or under constraints and preconditions. Data Science - data management/analysis - has nowadays become an important field in which to invest. Yesterday, at the graduation ceremony of the Faculty of Science and Applied Sciences of the University of Cyprus, the Rector Mr. Tasos Christofides particularly emphasized the importance of statistical analysis and his remarks resonate with me. I would like to clarify here that these remarks were not only made, as would be reasonable and expected from a Professor of Statistics and President of the Statistical Society, but they have a basis coming from a Rector of a University who has before him the overall picture and the trends that are taking shape in the field of university education internationally.
With this in mind, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports and Youth has supported the European Statistical Competition from the very first moment and will continue to support it as a co-organiser, together with the University of Cyprus and later the Cyprus Statistical Society.
I must also clarify that the competition is an idea of EUROSTAT and promotes statistical education in the best possible way.
I must also clarify that the competition is an idea of EUROSTAT and promotes statistical education in the best possible way. It also contributes to the dissemination of knowledge about authoritative statistical sources and the increase of interest in official statistics, Cyprus and Europe, among students, pupils and teachers.
Through its three phases, lasting approximately as long as the school year as a whole, the competition, for the second consecutive year, had to cope with the adversities and limitations due to the pandemic. This actually gives more value to the willingness and participation of the children. Despite the pandemic, therefore, participation was overwhelming. I therefore express on behalf of the co-organisers our satisfaction because we had 77 teams from 37 public and private secondary schools this year. A total of 225 students and 74 teachers participated. At the European level, this was the fifth participation of Cyprus this year, where two distinctions were recorded.
As the Ministry of Education, we feel the need to congratulate all those who worked for the success of this year's competition. At the same time, we would like to assure that the excellent cooperation that has been developed over the past five years between the Ministry of Education, the Statistical Service and the University of Cyprus for the organisation of the European Statistics Competition will continue. The development of statistical literacy among secondary school students is now one of our priorities. Moreover, I should underline that education in Statistics will help in the Financial Literacy effort, which is also being emphasized, as shown by yesterday's decision of the Council of Ministers to approve and implement the relevant National Strategy, according to a proposal submitted by the competent committee in which the Ministry of Education, along with the Ministry of Finance, the Central Bank of Cyprus and other partners, also participates.
