It is certainly true for some developing nations the immediate task is to put in place an independent and efficient system of national economic and social statistics and to train professionals, planners, and managers to operate this system and use its products. Statistics for all, with its emphasis on the wider public, may appear to be a luxury for the developed world. If a greatly increased numerical competence on the part of ordinary citizens seems utopian, consider that even in Western Europe programmes to achieve near-universal literacy were established only in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Developed nations may soon be giving numeracy the same emphasis that they placed a century ago on literacy. Developing societies may wish to telescope the process by simultaneously emphasising literacy and numeracy . Statistics for all may move from the reveries of ICOTS to national policy.
The CAUSE Research Group is supported in part by a member initiative grant from the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistics and Data Science Education