Abstract

Statistics South Africa (NSO) played a seminal role in the country, when Statistics topics were included in the school curriculum two decades ago, through the maths4stats programme. This programme aimed to bring home to teachers the role of statistics in society, both as an essential tool (statistical literacy), as well as recognition for statistics as an avenue for tertiary study. The extreme shortage of highly trained, well-skilled data analysts to serve Government, business and industry in the 4th Industrial Revolution, coupled with the high levels of unemployment amongst the youth, was a catalyst for a university (UKZN) to take the maths4stats program to a higher level, by defining an innovative project, the Teachers4DataAnalytics project, in partnership with industry and government, to advocate for tertiary level studies in data analytics, amongst teachers in the country