Teaching Statistics Within a Developing Country

• Activity Number: 193
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, July 30, 2012 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistical Education
• Author(s): Mark Griffin*+
• Companies: Australian Development Agency for Statistics and Information Systems
• Keywords: teaching ; education ; international aid ; developing nations ; pacific

Abstract

Statistics and information systems provide a basic foundation in international aid work, as staff struggle to understand the extent and the cause of the challenges facing developing nations, as those delivering intervention programs strive to evaluate the success of their programs, and as communities explain their needs to funding bodies and government agencies.

This seminar explores the success and challenges of one ASA initiative to teach statistics within developing nations, namely the Joint Oceanic Conference for Statistics and Information Systems. Two JOCSIS conference s have been held to date in Fiji in July 2011 and 2012. These conferences have brought together statisticians from the USA, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. In this seminar we will present the lessons that have been learnt throughout this conference series, and to provide insight to other ASA colleagues working in developing nations or with minority groups in other regions around the world.

This seminar will be presented by Mark Griffin. Mark is the Co-Chair of the ASA Group termed the Friends of Australasia, and the Conference Chair for the JOCSIS series.