Teaching statistics at the civil service academy of Pakistan: an innovative endeavour

Abstract

In the developing world, there is a need to create awareness in civil servants regarding the importance of carrying out in-depth analyses of official data, in order to ensure policy-formulation aimed at improving the lives of the people. This paper reports on an attempt to achieve this at the first level of civil service, through an innovative approach in rendering a course entitled “Quantitative Tools for Decision-Making” to the probationary officers of the 43rd Common Training Program at the Civil Services Academy of Pakistan. The course was wholly based on data pertaining to the 2011 Punjab Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS 2011). Feedback from participants in the four-month-long course provides motivation for recommending the ongoing adoption of this approach at all levels of civil service. Similar strategies may prove to be worthwhile in many other developing countries of the world striving to create statistical awareness in civil servants.