The Department for Communities (DfC) today released the publication ‘Engagement in culture, arts, heritage and leisure by young people in Northern Ireland’.
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The report, which takes the findings from the 2022 Young Persons’ Behaviour and Attitudes Survey, measures the engagement rate of those aged 11 to 16 across a number of areas.
As with previous years, almost all young people (98%) had participated in sport in 2022, a slight decrease from 99% in 2019.
The report also highlighted that over nine in every ten young people had engaged with the arts in 2022, similar to 2019 figures of 90%.
However, the proportion of young people who used the public library service fell to 43%, compared to 48% in 2019.
Similarly, visits to museum or science centres fell by 16 percentage points to 53% compared to 2019 (69%) and the number of young people volunteering also fell from 49% in 2019 to 44% in 2022.
The statistics also indicate that those young people entitled to free school meals have a lower engagement rate than those who are not, particularly for those who visited places of historic interest, attended arts events or visited a museum.
The report can be found here.
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