The importance of statistical education

The information on the RSS Careers in Statistics website shows that statistics is used in many different jobs. There is therefore an ongoing need for good, well-trained statisticians to fill these jobs and perform the statistical work to a high standard. As well as requiring a high standard of education in schools, this means that good statistical education in universities is of paramount importance.

There are of course several statistical computing programs available these days which can allow people untrained in statistics to use standard statistical methods to analyse their data. This makes the need for good statistical education even greater! It is all too easy to apply inappropriate analyses to data and thus obtain misleading and incorrect results. A good understanding of statistics is important so that the correct methods can be chosen and applied. Experts are needed both to write the statistical computing programs and to guide users towards correct analyses.