Abstract

Students starting PhD studies in South Africa usually lack the requisite skills and knowledge to make progress with their studies at the beginning. The earlier stages of their PhD studies are spent learning new methods and statistical computing skills required for their PhD topic. This phenomenon prevalent in most departments of statistics in South Africa and leads to slow progress and delayed time to graduation.

There is a need for a coordinated PhD training progamme in South Africa. In this talk we discuss to modification of the UK Academy for PhD Training in Statistics (APTS) tailored to the South African context. The APTS is a collaboration between major UK statistics research groups to organise courses for first-year PhD students in statistics and applied probability nationally. The intention of APTS is to provide courses which will be attractive and relevant to the research preparation and background education of all statistics and probability PhD students in the UK. APTS is open also to students from institutions outside the UK. It helps to create a UK wide community of research students in statistics and probability.