Statistical Service of Cyprus (CYSTAT)

Demographic, Social and Tourism Statistics

Statistical Service of Cyprus

CY-1444

Nicosia

Cyprus

The Adult Education Survey (AES) covers adults’ participation in education and training (formal - FED, non-formal - NFE and informal learning - INF). The 2022 AES focuses on people aged 18-69. The reference period for the participation in education and training is the twelve months prior to the interview.

Information available from the AES is grouped around the following topics:

• Participation in formal education, non-formal education and training and informal learning
• Volume of instruction hours
• Characteristics of the learning activities
• Reasons for participating
• Obstacles to participation
• Access to information on learning possibilities and guidance
• Employer financing and costs of learning
• Self-reported language skills

For further information see the 2022 AES legislation (http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/education-and-training/legislation) and the 2022 AES implementation manual (http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/education-and-training/methodology).

- Classification of Learning Activities (CLA, 2016 edition)
- International Standard Classification of Education 2011 (ISCED 2011)
- Classification of Occupations 2008 (ISCO 08)
- Classification of economic activities Rev. 2 (NACE Rev. 2)

AES covers all economic sectors.

Definitions as well as the list of variables covered are available in the 2022 AES implementation manual (http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/education-and-training/methodology).

Individuals, non-formal learning activities.

Individuals aged 18-69 living in private households.

Government controlled areas of the Republic of Cyprus.

AES data are available for 2006, 2011, 2016 and 2022.

Not applicable.

Number, EUR.

The fieldwork period for AES 2022 was 28/11/2022-10/03/2023.

The reference period for the AES 2022 is 12 months prior to the interview.

At European level:

Basic legal act: Regulation (EU) 2019/1700

Implementing act: Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2021/861

At national level:

Article 3 of the national Official Statistics Law, No. 25(I) of 2021 defines the functions of the Statistical Service of Cyprus regarding the production and dissemination of official statistics. Moreover, Article 13, explicitly stipulates the mandate for data collection and introduces a mandatory response to statistical enquiries by stipulating the obligation of respondents to reply to surveys and provide the data required. This relates not only to national but also to European statistics which, by virtue of Article 8 of the said Law, are incorporated in the annual and multiannual programmes of work without any further procedure.

Not applicable.

Official statistics are released in accordance to all confidentiality provisions of the following:

• National Official Statistics Law No. 25(I) of 2021 (especially Article 16 on statistical confidentiality).
• Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2009 on European statistics and its later amendments (especially Chapter 5 on statistical confidentiality).
• European Statistics Code of Practice (especially Principle 5 on statistical confidentiality).
• Guidelines for the Protection of Confidential Data.

The treatment of confidential data is regulated by Guidelines for the Protection of Confidential Data.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

According to the Dissemination and Pricing Policy of the Statistical Service of Cyprus (section 2.3) CYSTAT΄s main channel for dissemination of statistics is the web portal, which offers the same conditions to everyone and is updated at the same time every working day (12:00 noon). No privileged pre-released access is granted.

In addition to the annual release calendar, users are informed of the various statistical releases through the “Alert” service provided by CYSTAT.

Every 6 years.

No regular news release for the dissemination of AES 2022 results. When the results are ready to be disseminated, an announcement is uploaded in CYSTAT's web portal, informing the users on the new publication.

Not available.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Statistical micro-data from CYSTAT’s surveys are accessible for research purposes only and under strict provisions as described below:

Under the provisions of the Official Statistics Law, CYSTAT may release microdata for the sole use of scientific research. Applicants have to submit the request form "APPLICATION FOR DATA FOR RESEARCH PURPOSES" giving thorough information on the project for which micro-data are needed.

The application is evaluated by CYSTAT’s Confidentiality Committee and if the application is approved, a charge is fixed according to the volume and time consumed for preparation of the data. Micro-data may then be released after an anonymization process which ensures no direct identification of the statistical units but, at the same time, ensures usability of the data. The link for the application is attached below.

Not available.

Not applicable.

Not available.

Not applicable.

Not available.

The quality of statistics in CYSTAT is managed in the framework of the European Statistics Code of Practice which sets the standards for developing, producing and disseminating European Statistics as well as the ESS Quality Assurance Framework (QAF). CYSTAT endorses the Quality Declaration of the European Statistical System. In addition, CYSTAT is guided by the requirements provided for in Article 11 of the Official Statistics Law No. 25(I) of 2021 as well as Article 12 of Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics, which sets out the quality criteria to be applied in the development, production and dissemination of European statistics.

Additionally, all the interviewers were trained for 1 week and all the supervisors/coders were trained for 2 weeks. All of the variables and the modalities in the questionnaire were detailed explained. Throughout the data collection phase, the interviewers visited once a week their supervisors at the office for delivering the completed questionnaires as well as for checking their progress and quality of their work. Supervisors made frequently call-back to the households, randomly checked some of the answers given and they also made clarifications were needed.

The quality of the survey is of a desirable high standard. The response rate was high, thus securing reliable results. The validation and consistency checks were incorporated in the electronic questionnaire, securing the minimisation of field work errors. Additionally, the data collection phase was closely monitored and checked while the post checking and coding was performed by trained supervisors.

The weaknesses of the survey were:

1. In some cases, the long reference period may have resulted in recall errors.
2. The use of the Classification of ISCED fields of education for coding the fields of Non-Formal Education was in many cases ineffective.
3. The difficulty in communicating well due to respondents' lack of Greek or/and English languages.

The main users of the Adult Education Survey (besides EUROSTAT) include Policy makers at European level (e.g., European Commission, European Parliament, other European agencies), national authorities (e.g. Ministry of Education, Sport and Youth, Human Resource Development Authority of Cyprus), academics/researchers/students, trade unions, and enterprises.

Since 2008 (with the exception of 2010, 2013 and 2020) CYSTAT carries out an annual online “Users Satisfaction Survey”. The results of the surveys are available on CYSTAT’s web portal at the link attached below.

Overall, there is a high level of satisfaction of the users of statistical data published by CYSTAT.

All the variables requested by the legislation and included in the "2022 AES manual Methodological guidelines for the adult education survey" were collected.

Not applicable.

According to Reg. (EU) 2019/1700 Annex II, precision requirements for all data sets are expressed in standard errors and are defined as continuous functions of the actual estimates and of the size of the statistical population in a country or in a NUTS 2 region.

For the Adult Education Survey, the estimated standard errors of the following indicators are examined according to certain parameters set:

• Participation rate in formal education and training (age 18-24)
• Participation rate in non-formal education and training (age 25-69)

Additionally other measures were also taken in order to obtain results with high accuracy, such as providing good and thorough training to interviewers and supervisors, establishing a well-organised supervision process and conducting quality checks to data during the fieldwork period.

The sampling frame for the AES 2022 was the list of households from the 2021 Census of Population. Then the households were divided in two categories. One category was the households with at least one person aged 18-24 and the other category was households with at least one person aged 25-69.

Two different samples were then drawn, that would assist in meeting the precision requirements set by the regulation.

The coefficients of variation, the standard errors and the confidence intervals were calculated using the procedure PROC SURVEYMEANS in SAS, taking into account the sampling design and the weights.

See table 13.2.1 “Sampling errors - indicators for 2022 AES key statistics” in annex “CY - QR tables 2022 AES (excel)”.

Non-sampling error is the error in estimates, which cannot be attributed to sampling fluctuations.

The term summarises errors not attributed to sampling fluctuations. These errors can be:

(i) Non-response error due to the missing or wrong values of the Variables in the data.

(ii) Processing errors arising from faulty implementation of correctly planned implementation methods.

(iii) Coverage errors due to Over-coverage or Under-coverage of the population represented by the data.

(iv) Model errors due to the use of wrong measurement methods, for example an error caused by application of a wrong model in the Estimation.

(v) Random errors occurring during data collection, for example errors due wrong measurement or due to the time when the Administrative source is compiled.

Coverage errors include over-coverage, under-coverage and misclassification:

• Over-coverage: relates either to wrongly classified units that are in fact out of scope, or to units that do not exist in practice.
• Under-coverage: refers to units not included in the sampling frame.
• Misclassification: refers to incorrect classification of units that belong to the target population.

As previously reported, the sampling frame for the AES 2022 was the list of households from the 2021 Census of Population.

Since the period between the Census of the Population 2021, reference date 1/10/2021, and the beginning of the AES 2022 fieldwork was close, the frame was considered adequate and no supplementary list was necessary. 

Only housing units built after the 1st of October 2021 were not included in our sampling frame.

See table 13.3.1.1 “Over-coverage - rate” in annex “CY - QR tables 2022 AES (excel)”.

Not applicable.

Source of measurement errors

Possible sources of measurement errors are the questionnaire (design, content and wording), the method of data collection, the interviewers and the respondents. As most of the interviewers had previous experience with other surveys, the quality of the data was adequate.

Building process of questionnaire

The questionnaire for AES 2022 was developed on the basis of the 2022 AES Manual. Even though the questionnaire was tested, some questions were still difficult to be answered with precision. Difficulties due to memory lapses were encountered in questions regarding reporting all the Non-formal activities during the last 12 months. As the method of data collection was Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) many validation and consistency checks were implemented in the electronic questionnaire. This had a positive impact on the quality of the data collected. Additionally, problems usually accounted to the routing of the questionnaire were avoided.

Interview training

In order to reduce interviewer effects, a week training session for all the interviewers was organised. The training was conducted by permanent staff, the Statistics Officer responsible for the AES 2022 survey. The aim of the training was to ensure that all interviewers were uniformly trained both in regards to the content of the questionnaire, as well as their behaviour during the interview. Also, the interviewers had intensive sessions on working with their laptops and the electronic questionnaires in the environment of BLAISE. An interviewer manual was prepared explaining each and every single question of the questionnaire as well as their respective possible answers.

Quality control

Apart from the interviewers, the training sessions were attended by the supervisors. Each one of them was responsible for a group of maximum 4 interviewers. The supervisors had an additional week of training. During the fieldwork, supervisors had meetings with each one of the interviewers once a week. During these meetings, apart from discussing problems or questions raised, the supervisors also collected (from the interviewers´ laptops) all completed questionnaires. Their main duty during the data collection period was to examine the interviewers’ work and refer back to them for inconsistencies or for problems identified in connection with terminology. Furthermore, the supervisors had to double check some of the answers with respondents by telephone, especially in the case of inconsistent answers or missing data.

Non-response errors are errors due to an unsuccessful attempt to obtain the desired information from an eligible unit. Two main types of non-response errors are considered:

• Unit non-response which refers to the absence of information of the whole units (households and/or persons) selected into the sample.
• Item non-response which refers to the situation where a sample unit has been successfully enumerated, but not all the required information has been obtained.

The non-response rate of 7.5% in households could be considered as very satisfactory. It was much lower than the non-response rate for 2016 AES.

The households were informed through a notifying letter, explaining the purpose of the Survey. The letter was sent to them by post. In case that for any reason the letter was not delivered, the interviewers handed one at their first visit and informed the household for the purpose of the Survey.

According to the guidelines provided to the interviewers, the first contact with the households selected in the sample had to be in person.

If the residents of the household were available, the interviewer proceeded with the interview. If there was no communication during the first visit, the interviewer made the necessary arrangements so to proceed with the interview. The minimum number of visits in order to contact the household was three, but in several cases the interviewers overpass that number.

See table 13.3.3.1 “Unit non-response - rate” in annex “CY - QR tables 2022 AES (excel)”.

See table 13.3.3.2 “Item non-response rate” in annex “CY - QR tables 2022 AES (excel)”.

Processing errors were reduced to the minimum, since the questionnaires were completed directly in electronic form at the interviewer’s laptop using BLAISE software (CAPI). The validation and consistency checks were implemented during the data collection phase in BLAISE. The completed questionnaires were then transferred to the supervisor’s laptop for checking and coding (Household type, Field of higher education completed, Occupation, Economic activity, Field of higher education of the most recent formal educational activity, Field of selected non formal activity). The coding was performed using drop down lists to avoid mistakes. Editing involved checking for any deficiencies or logical inconsistencies. Any issues raised were solved after consultation with the interviewers at first and then the respondents, when required. Part of the edited questionnaires were re-examined by the responsible Statistics Officer. After the completion of the data collection the data was exported in excel files for further checks and then imported in SAS for the final editing and analysis.

• Fieldwork (data collection) has to be carried out between 1 July 2022 and 31 March 2023.
• Transmission of pre-checked microdata to Eurostat should take place within six months of the end of the national data collection period.
• Quality reports should be sent to Eurostat within three months of the deadline for transmitting microdata.

The timing was largely met.

Not applicable.

8 months after the end of the reference period.

The end of the national fieldwork period was in March 2023 and the pre-checked microdata was sent to Eurostat in October 2023. The data were published in Eurostat's website on the 14th of November 2023.

See table 14.2 “Project phases - dates” in annex “CY - QR tables 2022 AES (excel)”.

Not applicable.

See table 15.1 “Deviations from 2022 AES concepts and definitions” in annex “CY - QR tables 2022 AES (excel)”.

No additional variables related to COVID-19 were collected.

Not applicable.

The overall changes between 2016 and 2022 AES are described in the 2022 AES manual, annex 10. Apart from these, there were no other changes in Cyprus AES 2022 implementation.

See table 15.2 “Comparability - over time” in annex “CY - QR tables 2022 AES (excel)”.

Not applicable.

See table 15.3 “Coherence - cross-domain” in annex “CY - QR tables 2022 AES (excel)”.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

AES results for a given data collection round are based on the same microdata and results are calculated using the same estimation methods, therefore the data are internally coherent.

For the completion of the AES 2022 fieldwork there were 1 Statistical officer involved on a full-time basis, 25 enumerators and 8 supervisors.

For the data analysis and the quality report, there was 1 Statistics officer.

The mean interview duration per person was calculated as the sum of the duration of all personal interviews, divided by the number of questionnaires completed. Only persons accepted for the database were considered.

Mean (average) interview duration per person was 56 minutes.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Every 6 years.

The questionnaire was designed according to the instructions of the AES 2022 manual.

The primary data collection mode was CAPI (Computer Assisted Personal Interview), i.e. the questionnaires were completed by the interviewer. When required, CATI was also used. 

See also table 18.1 “Source data” in annex “CY - QR tables 2022 AES (excel)”.

The questionnaires were completed using the computer assisted (CAPI) module in Blaise. Automatic checks and validations were embedded during collection phase to assure the correctness of the data.

The completed questionnaires were then transferred to the supervisor’s laptop for editing and coding the questions that were not pre-coded (Field of the highest level of education or training successfully completed, Occupation, Economic activity, Field of the most recent formal education activity, Field of the 1st non-formal learning activity, Field of the 2nd non-formal learning activity). Editing for any deficiencies or logical inconsistencies was also performed by supervisors. The edited data from the supervisors was randomly rec-examined by the responsible Statistics Officers. At the end of the data collection the data was exported in excel files which were later imported in the Statistical Package SAS. All the necessary variables were constructed according to the requirements of the Regulation. Additional consistency checks as well as range checks and skip checks were performed in order to verify the correctness of the data, despite the fact that most of the checks referring to the range of the variables and skip checks were embedded in the electronic questionnaire from the beginning. The data was analysed with the Statistical Package SAS, including the calculation and assignment of the weights.

A description of the weighting procedure is available in the annex "CY - Data compilation AES 2022".

See table 18.5.1 “Imputation - rate” in annex “CY - QR tables 2022 AES (excel)”.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

No further comments.