Ho, Oct 27 GNA - Prof Nicholas N.N. Nsowah-Nuamah, Deputy Government Statistician, has said many students were shying away from the statistics programme because they erroneously associated it with mathematics and also see it as a "dry programme." Addressing students of statistics at Ho, he said statistical training should be focussed on conceptual mastery and skill development in a manner that promotes the transfer and application of concepts across contexts.

He said there are numerous job opportunities for statisticians both nationally and internationally in the fields of banking, commerce and agriculture among others. Prof Nsowah-Nuamah said real life situations were explained by statistics adding, "statistics provides vital information to build economic analysis, undertakes important studies and test economic theory."

He said other widespread use of statistics was quality control of routine processes and that food safety monitoring for instance generally tended to depend on meticulous record keeping and sound statistical analysis. Pro Nsowah-Nuamah said statistics could also be used in various fields from the simple to the complex by governments to make informed intelligent decisions about critical issues such as health, politics and economy.

He said though the importance of statistics was acknowledged in practice, its funding was often under strain and called for more funding and improvement of service condition of the Ghana Statistical Service. He appealed to the Ghana Association of Statistics Students (GASS) in tertiary institutions to adopt some senior high schools in their regions to help create awareness of statistics among students. Mrs Augusta Okantey, Volta Regional Statistician who chaired the function said most arguments were considered incomplete, unimpressive and unconvincing unless they were supported with figures provided by statisticians.

She said statisticians have a vital role to play in each sector of the economy towards the achievement of the country's millennium development goals. Mr Sarpong Smart, National President of GASS, appealed to the Ghana Education Service to consider introducing statistics into the curriculum of senior high schools.