Russian Association of Statisticians: Filling the Gaps in the Education Chain

Abstract

Typically, training in Russia for professionals includes school, university, and postgraduate education. People make their choice regarding university or job after school, and they choose jobs after university. These are very sensitive matters. Help in making the right choice is a real asset. The Russian Association of Statisticians (RASt) is an independent, non-profit organisation that does not provide statistical education as a university and does not collect and process data as a statistical institution. But RASt helps students, universities, and producers of statistical data find each other. The paper describes the activities of RASt which organises the school competition in statistics called “Trend” to support students in choosing a profession and the kick-off competition “Career” for university students to help them get to know their employers. The organisers of the competition for school children usually face a number of problems related to the young age of participants and to limited funding. If we are talking about such a country as huge as Russia, the problems increase. To solve these problems, organisers use a combination of competition of presentations about original statistical researches provided by school teams in regions and an online quiz on statistical topics at the final stage. Technologically, the entire process is supported by ROSSTAT with its IT network. The organisers hope that the competition will make the profession of statistician more popular in Russia and attract more students to statistical programmes in universities.
 First published February 2020 at Statistics Education Research Journal Archives