Statistics graduates in Nigeria are usually well grounded in theory but often leave university without the communication, relationship-building and problem-framing skills needed to work with domain experts. Nigeria’s Benchmark Minimum Academic Standards expect these competencies. However, the mandatory Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES) often places statistics students in roles with little statistical content or supervision. This paper describes how the University of Ibadan Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Statistical Analysis (UI-LISA) has addressed this gap by formally educating students in interdisciplinary collaboration over the past decade. UI-LISA was established in 2015 in Nigeria’s oldest Department of Statistics and was the third member of the LISA 2020 Global Network.
UI-LISA is an approved industrial-training placement and a training home for graduate and postgraduate volunteer collaborators. Its model is a structured apprenticeship. Students attend weekly practical classes in R led by senior collaborators, observe and then take part in live consultations with researchers, and are assigned to real projects alongside faculty mentors. They are assessed through supervisor evaluations, seminar presentations and internship reports. Students also practise explaining statistics to non-specialists through walk-in consulting, Mobile Statistical Clinics, the “One Hour with a Statistician” series and the lab’s university radio programme, “Data Speaks”. Community outreach gives them further practice, including training staff of small businesses in the lab’s host community. Student collaborators have also contributed to large-scale projects, including a USAID-funded national survey with Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission and a statistical capacity project with the Oyo State Ministry of Environment.
Between 2015 and 2020, the lab trained more than 60 industrial-training students from the University of Ibadan, as well as interns from several other Nigerian institutions. Every intern surveyed said they would recommend the programme. Former interns have become lab collaborators and trainers, found jobs or started data-analysis businesses. Positive reports from visiting interns led the Federal University of Technology, Akure to set up its own stat lab. We reflect on the challenges we faced, including unpaid collaborators, staff turnover, limited space and unreliable power and internet. We also draw lessons for building collaboration training into statistics curricula in resource-constrained settings.
