Involvement of Private Universities in Statistical Education in Nigeria: Prospects and Challenges
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Date
2018
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Publisher
International Journal of Advancement in Development Studies
Abstract
The importance of information in the development of any organization or nation necessitates a strong statistical education because of its role in information dissemination. The issue of developmental challenges in Nigeria can be associated with low level of statistical education. In this paper, various challenges facing statistical education in Nigeria were identified from the authors’ experiences. Nigeria still grapples with low statistical literacy and the most disturbing finding is that the little progress is at a slow pace. Insufficient teaching aids such as computers with standard statistical software, power supply, electronic boards and internet facilities were some of the challenges identified. A very serious challenge that has also been identified as facing statistical education in Nigeria is expensive tuition in private universities. Courses like medicine, engineering, law, economics, computer science, and others usually referred to as lucrative, attracts more enrolments in private universities than courses like statistics that are regarded as less lucrative in this part of the world. Meanwhile, some of these universities have features favouring quality statistical education. A survey carried out in a Nigerian private university identified some issues that could be linked with the low level of statistical literacy in Nigeria. The survey confirmed the low level of understanding on what the course is all about. First, 62.8% of the respondents didn’t answer the question on their view about statistics, which might suggest either that they don’t like the course or they’re not familiar with it. Also, out of the 37.2% who answered the question, 20.4% indicated that they don’t know about the course. Suggestions were made on ways of improving statistical education in Nigeria. The paper is an addition to information on making statistics more appreciated as a course in order to improve the level of statistical literacy in Nigeria.
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Keywords
Survey, Teaching aids, Negative attitudes, Practical illustrations.