Capacity building in the Maths4Stats project Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) launched the maths4stats project in 2007 to enhance the level of statistical interest and literacy among school learners. To encourage the development of basic statistics skills needed by educators to cope with statistics in the curriculum.

Project Objectives To create a specialised body of educators with a passion for Mathematics; To instil love and interest for mathematics and statistics in educators and learners; To ensure that syllabi are relevant to South Africa, and yet still meet international standards and To create a population that is enthusiastic about statistics.

Why get involved? Most of the statistics education courses have been introduced recently; therefore most practicing teachers have not had any statistics training and do not know how to teach statistics effectively. A 2013 survey completed the maths4stats lecture series indicated that only 18% of educators had encountered some form of formal or previous statistics studies.

Building statistics capacity requires us to increase the flow at each level School leavers with interest in making Statistics their career of choice Under graduate studies in Statistics Post graduate studies in Statistics The long term aim of the project is to strengthen the expertise within statistics SA

Investment in the teaching and learning of Statistics in the School curriculum Statistics education in South Africa experienced two major initiatives in 2002. First a teacher training programme started off with the Sixth International Conference on the Teaching of Statistics (ICOTS-6), Secondly the South African Census@School project initiated by Statistics South Africa provided a rich source of real data, aiming on the one hand at creating awareness for the national census in schools and on the other hand to promote statistical literacy.

Curriculum Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) Learners should work through at least 1 data cycle for the year – this involves collecting and organizing, representing, analysing, summarizing, interpreting and reporting data. Data handling contexts should be selected to build awareness of social, economic and environmental issues.

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Implementation After intensive and extensive training and teaching on statistics coordinated by Statistics SA; The maths4stats coordinators conducted data handling and probability workshops across all phases. Bringing the world of statistics to the classroom –Introducing educators to products and software of the organisation Invited learners and educators to participate in National / international competitions and conferences

Exposure to the world of Statistics ISLP Competition Best Cooperative award The Girl Child The Girl-child project

Collaboration with universities The lecturers knowledge of the school statistics content increased and they modified their teaching module. Educators experienced the opportunity of attending a lecture series presented by statistics lecturers of universities in SA. The expected outcomes was a deep layered understanding of the content. 2500 maths educators attended

Qualitative Data Highest level of Qualification of educators in attendance 2 6 5 18% 33% 20% 72% 29%

Confidence level of teaching and engaging with Statistics First day of training Last day of training

W S T O STRENGTHS (+) WEAKNESSES (–) •The world of statistics to the classroom •Training material ,software products of StatsSA •Knowledge able on school systems •Content and Pedagogical Knowledge. of coordinators •Schools not buying into initiative from StatsSA • Inadequate staff capacitated. •Lack of consistent monitoring and evaluation •Language barriers. OPPORTUNITIES (+) THREATS (–) •Increased knowledge of statistics •New Technologies •Exposure to the world of statistics, National and international conferences, competitions and workshops •Partnerships with organisations and educational institutions. •Educators not confident in teaching statistics. •Statistics accounts for only 15% of Maths curriculum •Statistics are taught in last term. •Educators do not have adequate content knowledge.

Realities and Way forward South Africa’s Mathematics education in crisis: about 50% of learners unable to obtain more than 30% for a standardized maths test Statistics education in South Africa is still in its infancy Maths4stats program (ISIbalo) seek to enrich teachers and learners towards achieving the goals of the NDP This endeavour builds on a close the collaboration of the National Department of Education, universities, and Statistics South Africa