Ross Darnell
President
Queensland Branch
Statistical Society of Australia
c/- CSIRO
P O Box 120
Cleveland QLD
Phone: 07 3826 7296
Email: ross.darnell@csiro.au
27th March, 2008.
Queensland Chief Scientist
Office of the Queensland Chief Scientist
Brisbane QLD.
Chief.scientist@qld.gov.au
Dear Professor Andrews,
I wish to draw to your attention a matter that causes great concern for the profession
of statistics and ultimately to the training of Queensland teachers and scientists. As
reported in the Australian, 26th March, in the article “Funding doesn’t add up”, a
proposal currently under review at the University of Southern Queensland states that 3
out of the 4.5 full time academic staff involved in the teaching, consulting and
research of statistical methodology and application are “no longer required”.
Mathematics, Chemistry and Physics are also severely targeted under the proposal.
This occurs less than one month after Federal Innovation, Industry, Science and
Research Minister Kim Carr’s address to the Australian Academy of Science
conference in which he stated “In mathematics the problem has been particularly
acute. Someone has called mathematics 'the language of the sciences', but it is also, in
important ways, the language of business, economics, social policy and the trades.”
Cuts to staf and statistics programs at USQ will impact on the number of statistics
graduates as well as reducing the quality of the teaching of statistics “service” courses
which ultimately affect the knowledge base of other disciplines as noted by Minister
Carr. Many universities do not produce large numbers of students majoring in
statistics but often support statistics courses by “service” teaching. It would appear
that USQ management is cutting staff on the basis of student numbers enrolled as
statistics majors and has ignored the overall financial viability of their statistics
section as derived from service teaching, research and consulting services. They also
seem to have ignored recent initiatives by the Federal government in the support of
mathematics and science training , in particular a 75% increase in CGS funding for
2008 .
Professor Peter Hall’s article, “Time is counting against us”, which appeared in the
same edition of the Australian stated “The demand for trained mathematical scientists
rose by 52 per cent in the eight years to 2004 and is forecast to grow by at least
another 32 per cent in the next eight years (according to the Department of Education,
Science and Training's 2006 audit of science, engineering and technology skills).”
It is my belief that the actions by USQ administrators will reduce Queensland’s ability
to enable sciences and technologies. Recommendations made in the SSAI-sponsored
review “Statistics at Australian Universities” completed in December 2005, included
the following recommendation;
“We also recommend that the Federal Minister for Education, Science and Training
encourage state authorities to involve formally the full range of stakeholders
(including universities) in any future developments/changes in statistical education,
the latter always to be considered against the background of ensuring a supply of
appropriately trained and supported teachers to deliver the statistics
curriculum.”http://www.statsoc.org.au/review0405/ReviewofStatsFinalReport.pdf
I ask for your support in these concerns, perhaps in the form of a note to the USQ
Vice Chancellor, Prof Bill Lovegrove (lovegrov@usq.edu.au), the Deputy
VC(Scholarship), Prof Graham Baker (bakerg@usq.edu.au), the
DeputyVC(Research), Prof Frank Bullen (bullen@usq.edu.au) and the Chancellor, Ms
Bobbie Brazil (brazilb@usq.edu.au) regarding the importance of retaining programs
in the enabling sciences at USQ.
Yours sincerely
Ross Darnell
President of the Queensland Branch of the Statistical Society of Australia
Cc:
Ms Bobbie Brazil, Chancellor, University of Southern Queensland,
brazilb@usq.edu.au
Professor Bill Lovegrove, Vice Chancellor, University of Southern
Queensland, lovegrov@usq.edu.au
Professor Graham Baker, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Scholarship), University
of Southern Queensland, bakerg@usq.edu.au
Professor Frank Bullen, DeputyVice-Chancellor (Research), University of
Queensland, bullen@usq.edu.au
Assoc Professor Janet Verbyla, Dean, Faculty of Sciences, University of
Southern Queensland, verbyla@usq.edu.au