a. Development programs – The introduction of development programs in statistics education in Africa is an ongoing process. Hence, a review of prior research into the development of statistics education at secondary and tertiary levels is of importance. We seek to provide an overview of different approaches to statistics, challenges faced, and lessons learned, which can inform future research directions. b. The gaps between statistics at secondary and tertiary level – At the school level, statistics forms an insignificantly small part of the Mathematics subject curriculum, and as a consequence, learners move from school to higher institutions of learning with no knowledge of statistics as a career. This proposal then looks forward to outlining major challenges school educators and learners face, gaps in the knowledge base from the school level, and important directions for future research in the development of statistics in Africa. We seek to outline a vision for the future of statistics development that focuses on building capacity through a strongly integrated focus on practice and content. c. Teaching and Learning Statistics during the covid-19 pandemic – In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic afforded the schooling and tertiary education communities to move to alternative ways of teaching and learning statistics, reducing the face-to-face activities to a minimum level, particularly at the tertiary level. Africa was at the epicentre of this change, where many institutions moved decisively into remote and online teaching with alternative approaches to assessing learning in statistics. New communities of practice amongst students and academics emerged, embracing the evolution of e-learning and online instruction. However, this came with different challenges, depending on the level of learning (schooling versus tertiary level, first-year versus third-year tertiary level classes) and the class size (more than 1,000 and less than 50). Therefore, solutions to the challenges require careful thinking and planning to provide opportunities for the students to achieve the best learning outcomes without making it too onerous for academics.

The introduction of development programs in statistics education in Africa is an ongoing process. Hence, a review of prior research into the development of statistics education at secondary and tertiary levels is of importance. We seek to provide an overview of different approaches to statistics, challenges faced, and lessons learned, which can inform future research directions in Africa. We aim to highlight the gaps between statistics at the secondary and tertiary levels. At the school level, statistics forms an insignificantly small part of the Mathematics subject curriculum, and as a consequence, learners move from school to higher institutions of learning with no knowledge of statistics as a career. This proposal then looks forward to outlining major challenges school educators and learners face, gaps in the knowledge base from the school level, and important directions for future research in the development of statistics in Africa. We seek to outline a vision for the future of statistics development that focuses on building capacity through a strongly integrated focus on practice and content.

Organiser: Dr Retius Chifurira 

Chair: Dr Retius Chifurira 

Speaker: Knowledge Chinhamu 

Speaker: Essey Kebede 

Discussant: Temesgen Zewotir