SALDRU concludes its 20th course in the Analysis of Survey Data today. The course usually runs in January every year but had to be rescheduled because of adjustments made to UCT’s 2016 academic calendar in the light of the Fees Must Fall protests.
The course is designed for non-statisticians who are interested in learning how to apply South Africa’s abundant data to their work.
Participants use a statistical package, Stata, to learn research tools and undertake research on the National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS) data. The fact that the course has been going strong for 20 years is a demonstration of the relevance of this course for generations of South Africans.
There has never been a charge for the course with the costs being covered by generous funding over the years from the Mellon Foundation, the Ford Foundation and, recently, a substantial endowment led by the Kresge Foundation with Mellon, Ford and some of South Africa’s universities that has made the course sustainable into the future.
This year the course attracted upwards of 60 participants from both local and international organisations. Amongst the better known organisations was StatsSA, The Competition Commission and UN World Food Programme.