Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) has launched a campaign to enhance the level of statistical interest and literacy among school learners.
The long-term aim of the project is to strengthen the expertise within Stats SA following instances in the past few years where figures were found to be incorrect.
Trevor Manuel, the Minister of Finance, launched the campaign in Midrand, north of Johannesburg, saying that “ordinary people must have trust” in the information they receive from Stats SA.
Called maths4stats, the campaign would tap into the skills of the existing pool of mathematics teachers to encourage more learners to study statistics. The campaign fits neatly into the governments efforts to promote maths and science as gateway subjects.
As part of the campaign, Stats SA ran a competition for grade 10 to 12 mathematics teachers to identify educators who are passionate about the subject.
The competition attracted 600 entrants and only 26 teachers made the grade.
The winners formed part of a South African delegation attending the seventh International Conference on Teaching Statistics held in Brazil.
Hilgard Matthews of Stats SA said the winners were identified after an intense and rigorous selection process. “The competition was advertised in all major national papers, after which teachers had to sit for exams in 30 centres across the country,” said Matthews.
He said the test component of the exam was not meant to “catch them out”, but was based on “simple, basic stuff such reading and interpreting graphs”.
This was followed by a short essay, where teachers had to tell Stats SA what the benefits of participating in the project would be for them and their schools.
“Once this was done, Stats SA interviewed them to see if they were informed about the socio-political dynamics of the country and, more importantly, to see if they are passionate about statistics,” Matthews said.
Padi Lehotla, Stats SA’s chief statistician, said the event marked the fulfilment of the tasks Manuel gave to Stats SA to increase the number of “people who have passion for maths and statistics.”
Manuel echoed Lehotla’s sentiments, saying that the 26 teachers are part of a nucleus that would help “enlarge and deepen the reservoir of those who have passion for numbers.”
“Go there knowing that you represent the future and that you are igniters of passion for numbers,” said Manuel.
Matthews said the campaign would run for three years and it “aims to bring the mathematics and education communities together to work in collaboration, with the purpose of developing mathematics education and strengthening the statistics component of maths.”