BellTime Magazine Spring/Summer 2017 7 | Page 53

CensusAtSchool
The results of the 2016 Census at schools were released on the 20th of October 2016. The results were presented by Helen McGrath, Statistician, at the CSO John Hooper and APPS4Gaps awards ceremony. 4,199( 1.1 %) from an estimated 380,000 secondary school students completed the Phase 15 questionnaire of the CensusAtSchool survey between September 2015 and August 2016. The questionnaire covered a variety of topics ranging from 1916 related topics, the level of Irish speaking to the type of school transport used.
Some interesting findings from the 2016 Census at School results were:
• Over a third of secondary school students have visited the GPO. See Figure 1. Students who enjoy history are more than twice as likely as those who do not to have visited the 1916- 1922 historical sites identified in the questionnaire.
• Just under half( 44 %) of students are transported to school by car. Only one fifth of students walk to school.
• The top three social networks and apps used were Youtube, Snapchat and Instagram. Females were far more likely to use Pinterest, Instagram, and Snapchat than males.
• Almost two thirds of students reported an ability to speak Irish( 65 %). Of those who can speak Irish, 63 % never speak it outside school. Males are less likely than females to speak Irish outside school if they live in the Gaeltacht. This trend is not affected by the type of school attended.
• Students were asked to indicate which sports they played in the previous year. The percentage of male students who played no sports was greater than the percentage of female
• 22 % of the population smoke and 81 % of the population drink alcohol, while 53 % of the population are either overweight or obese.
The results of this survey is just one example of the many ways in which CSO figures provide information about Irish life, its people and economy. There are lots of useful infographics that can be downloaded from our website and reused free of charge. http:// www. cso. ie / en / interactivezone / infographics /
students. Female students played a greater range of sports than males in general.
• Students were asked to indicate what word they would use to describe being Irish. The top two terms for both male and female students were“ Proud” and“ Hard-working”.
You can see more results from the Census at Schools 1916 results at http:// www. cso. ie / en / interactivezone / censusatschoolsreleases / c ensusatschool2016 /. The 2016 / 17 questionnaire has now been launched and includes questions about sustainable development and climate change. We would encourage schools to take part both as an aid to learning about statistics and to find out how irish secondary school students compare with their counterparts around the world.
• How many same sex marriages and how many civil partnerships were there in 2015?
• Has the population increased or declined from 1841 to 2016?
• Has Ireland’ s population gotten older?
• Are we living longer?
• How many vacant holiday homes are there in 2016?
• How many days were lost due to strikes in 2015?
• Do we have many households with broadband internet connection?
• Have we lost our appetite for credit cards? How many new vehicles were licensed in your county for the first time during 2015?
The answers to these questions and many more can be found in the Statistical Yearbook of Ireland 2016 which was published on the 20th of October. The Yearbook presents a statistical picture of Ireland and is compiled mainly from the data published by the CSO for the most recent full year( 2015). The book is an online publication with links to more detailed data when it is required. This year’ s edition also includes information from Census 2016. http:// www. cso. ie / en / releasesandpublications / ep / p- syi / psyi2016 /
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