From: Sharleen <sharleen.forbes@xtra.co.nz>
Date: February 27, 2009 1:11:23 PM PST
To: Juana Sanchez <jsanchez@stat.ucla.edu>
Subject: Nomination for ISLP price for Best-Cooperative-Project-Award in Statistical Literacy" 

Hi Juana

I would like to nominate the NZ Certificate in Official Statistics for this award. I know that this is different to most of the projects that will be nominated but we feel that this is an innovative project, especially in the cross-agency and across-university collaborations that helped create the certificate and continue to maintain it. It is one of the first attempts we have made to teach statistical literacy skills to adult learners in the workplace.

I have attached the paper that I am to give at IASE about this project but have also given answers to the criteria specified below.

(a) The certificate is a creative, successful and ongoing  project with the fourth cohort of students currently being enrolled. It has been formally assessed and resulting changes made to both the teaching and assessment.

(b) While participation in the course is on a cost recovery basis, access to the philosophy, pedagogy and assessment results are free to all.

© The certificate aims to educate state sector employees in particular not only on basic concepts of data collection, statistical theory and analysis, but also in the appropriate use of this information in the development of all levels of policy advice (from administrative human resource or financial advice through to direct advice to government. A component of this certificate is teaching how to evaluate published papers and research reports for the quality of statistical information and its appropriateness for specified policy questions.

(d) While the certificate is targeted to state sector employees there are no pre-entry requirements and past students have qualifications varying from no school qualifications through to post-graduate.

(e) The most innovative part of this project has been the collaboration between institutions. Firstly the National Statistics Office (Statistics New Zealand), the State Services Commission (agency responsible for cross-departmental state sector issues) and Learning State (the Industry Training Organisation responsible for state sector training) worked together to create this qualification but none of these directly provide general education services. In addition, A group of academics from statistics departments in the seven main New Zealand universities came together, advised on the number and content of each unit and agreed to work collectively with Statistics New Zealand to deliver the statistical content although only one of these universities had any past experience in vocational teaching.
 
(h) While this is a national qualification the level of numeracy and statistical literacy among government advisors is a concern in  a number of countries. We are interested in developing an international network working in this area and developing further resources.

Cheers

Sharleen