Honours students in the North-West University’s (NWU’s) Department of Statistics and Operations Research are over the moon following an industrial visit to Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) in Pretoria.

The students from the university’s campus in Mahikeng were accompanied by four academics including Prof Elias Munapo, who said: “The link between universities and industry is very important and this was shown by the large number of StatsSA staff who attended the presentations”.

Fourth-year Bsc honours student Naledi Mokoena says she intends to practise in the field of economic statistics. “The (industrial) visit was interesting and mind-blowing. We learnt about different fields of statistics…they (StatsSA) unpacked a whole new world of statistics for us.”

Also on the industrial visit was Kgaudi Kgari who says he gained valuable insight into how statistics is applied. Upon graduation, he hopes to work in the field of data analysis and the application of statistics in sport.

Prof Elias Munapo says his department intends to conduct similar industrial visits in the new year to expose students to industry.