7.8 Needs of education#
An NSO can play an important role in helping children get the best out of statistics from an early age and to stress how these data could help them make decisions throughout their lives.
Many schools and high schools have introduced statistics into the curriculum. School visits to the NSO are quite common in many countries, although the degree to which an NSO participates in the design of these courses or invests in statistical outreach to schools varies considerably from country to country.
The following activities could form part of the user engagement strategy for schools:
Defining courses on statistics that use examples of familiar situations that take place in daily life and then apply statistical analysis to them or use existing collections of data such as sports league tables to help build statistical literacy using real-world data. Statistics can be incorporated into the school mathematics courses (as they are already in many countries). Courses may also include training on infographics.
Creating online sites specifically aimed at children. Initiatives can include story-telling techniques with graphics to explain statistical phenomena, online statistical quizzes and essay competitions to underline the value of using statistics.
Conducting career orientation seminars and statistical advocacies that are comprehensive and engaging in students.
ISI/IASE: International Statistical Literacy Project (ISLP).
Eurostat – The European Statistics Competition (🔗).
Malawi’s establishment of a statistical training school to serve statistical staff across the NSS (🔗).
Nigeria youth exchanges with schools (🔗), the training school (🔗) for entire NSS in-service training, the annual retreat with media (🔗) and dissemination using social media (🔗).
Rwanda. National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda annual competition (🔗) intended for University students in the framework of the celebration of the African Statistics Day to raising public awareness about the importance of statistics in the economic and social development of the continent.
Cayman Islands Economics and Statistics Office web page for students (🔗).