The Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) has been dedicated to promoting official statistics literacy to enhance the understanding and use of official statistics by the public. In line with the development of moral and civic education in Macao, DSEC has been providing teaching materials about official statistics to enrich the Moral and Civic Education online teaching resources for secondary and primary schools. In order to help teachers better understand the teaching materials on official statistics, DSEC in cooperation with the Education and Youth Development Bureau (DSEDJ) held two sessions of Moral and Civic Education teacher training for secondary and primary teachers on 26 and 27 May to familiarize participants with statistical knowledge. A total of about 100 teachers from over 40 local secondary and primary schools attended the training class.

During the session, DSEC representatives presented the fundamental principles of official statistics, the common statistical fallacies and examples, as well as the guidelines for correctly interpreting statistics. Taking the example of the decennial population census, the largest statistical project of DSEC, the presenter talked about the design of the census, including questionnaire content, sampling method and data collection means. Furthermore, topics on the population of Macao and its characteristics, population ageing and its social and economic impacts were discussed through the presentation of the preliminary results of the 2021 Population Census, including the demographic data and statistical indicators such as the dependency ratios and the ageing ratio, which were released at the end of last year. The discussion section was fruitful where participants and DSEC staff discussed and exchanged views on the application of official statistics, ways of obtaining statistical information, teaching resources on statistics, etc.  

Moral and Civic Education teaching materials are designed to strengthen the cultivation of students’ moral values and civic awareness. DSEC aims to promote statistical literacy and knowledge through organising different types of seminars and activities for schools, in an effort to raise students’ interest in the study and use of statistics, and to encourage students to know and to care about the society through statistics.