Introduction

The curricula of most science-based degrees do not give adequate coverage of designing experiments, analyses and interpretation of results. Even in social sciences the treatment of data collection methods and data analyses is dealt at a superficial level. Therefore, graduates most often do not possess basic skills of conducting research projects, which can withstand critical scientific scrutiny.

A knowledge of statistics is essential not only to analyse data, but more importantly at the designing stage of an experiment. It is essential that every institute that conducts research must have at least one qualified statistician (applied statistician or biometrician as the case may be).