Accuracy and reliability
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Population and Education, Social StatisticsAsger Bromose Langgaard
+45 21 59 96 46
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The administrative systems that are the basis for the statistics are used by the institutions for their own daily administration of the students as well as for the payment of various financial grants. Correct registers are therefore necessary for the economy of the institutions and contributes to an expected high quality of the data source. The Ministry of Children and Education conduct error detection of data and the quality of the received data is high. Errors do occur but they are in most cases corrected the following year.
Overall accuracy
The precision of the statistics is high, because The Ministry of Children and Education collects data directly from the administrative systems of the educational institutions. Uncertainty arises when the institutions register certain students or educations wrongly. When this is discovered, the error will be corrected before next year's publication of data. At the level of specific upper secondary educations or groups, the uncertainty will be greater.
Sampling error
Not relevant for these statistics.
Non-sampling error
Coverage errors can occur because of students enrolled in upper secondary education not registered in these statistics. Missing records can occur because of errors in the registration of students. When start and/or end dates of form levels overlap, the student will be registered as having completed the previous level at the same date they begin the next level.
Quality management
Statistics Denmark follows the recommendations on organisation and management of quality given in the Code of Practice for European Statistics (CoP) and the implementation guidelines given in the Quality Assurance Framework of the European Statistical System (QAF). A Working Group on Quality and a central quality assurance function have been established to continuously carry through control of products and processes.
Quality assurance
Statistics Denmark follows the principles in the Code of Practice for European Statistics (CoP) and uses the Quality Assurance Framework of the European Statistical System (QAF) for the implementation of the principles. This involves continuous decentralized and central control of products and processes based on documentation following international standards. The central quality assurance function reports to the Working Group on Quality. Reports include suggestions for improvement that are assessed, decided and subsequently implemented.
Quality assessment
The strength of the statistics is that data are collected from the institutions' administrative registers, which the institutions use for the administration of their students. Errors in the administrative registers are however unavoidable.
Data revision - policy
Statistics Denmark revises published figures in accordance with the Revision Policy for Statistics Denmark. The common procedures and principles of the Revision Policy are for some statistics supplemented by a specific revision practice.
Data revision practice
The institutions have the possibility of retrospective revision when reporting data. When that happens, data from previous years are revised.