Frequently Asked Questions

The purpose of ICCSSA is

• To promote the status of professional Statisticians in the South African private and public sectors.
• To provide a forum for the exchange of Statistical knowledge among members, for the benefit of South Africa.
• To promote publications and other works pertaining to practicing Statisticians and to recognise merit in such publications and works.
• To lead, direct and influence policy in Statistics for the public, private and educational sectors.
• To promote and advance education and training of Statistical Sciences in South Africa.
• Through effective financial management, ensure that maximum feasible short, medium and long-term advantages accrue to the Members of the Institute in the form of its stability, facilities, benefits and activities.
• To preserve the rights of statisticians of Professional status in the publications of statistics (e.g. data, forecasts, estimations, confidence intervals) and statistical models utilised in the derivation of statistics in concordance with the Act No. 27 of 2003 of SACNASP.
• To forge alliances with similar International entities.

1. An application fee of R250.00 for Certificated and R500.00 for Chartered membership must be paid for EACH Field of Practice (FoP) that you apply for and these application fees are NOT refundable. There is no application fee for Associated Membership.
2. Applications will not be processed unless proof of payment is received.
3. Only complete applications can be processed.
4. A complete application must include the documents and information listed below. Additional documentation may be requested in support of the application.
5. All official documents must bear the original stamp and signature of the Commissioner of Oaths.
6. Templates for the Work Experience Report and the Referee reports are provided and must be used for the application. Note: the Work Experience report must be filled in for EACH Field of Practice (FoP) and TWO Referee Reports must be provided.
7. You will need the following documentation:
   • CERTIFIED COPY of South African ID or, if not a South African citizen, a certified copy of passport.
   • CERTIFIED COPY of MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE / OFFICIAL PROOF OF CHANGE OF SURNAME: Required only if official documents are issued in another surname.
   • CURRICULUM VITAE Full details of applicant without repeating the field(s) where the applicant has been practicing and publications, presentations and other reports.
   • QUALIFICATION/S N.Dip., B.Tech., N.H.Dip., D.Tech., Bachelors Degree, Bachelors Degree (Honours), Masters Degree, Doctorate Degree or any other degree with a major in Statistical Sciences e.g. Econometrics Note: Certified by a Commissioner of Oaths
   • TRANSCRIPT/S OF ACADEMIC RECORDS In support of your application. Certified by a Commissioner of Oaths
   • ABSTRACT/S OF THESIS OR DISSERTATION Including title / front page
   • FOREIGN QUALIFICATIONS: SAQA certificate compulsory. Syllabi may be required.
   • ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS By an official translator of all qualifications issued in foreign languages.
   • WORK EXPERIENCE Complete report on relevant work experience. Please use the ICCSSA Applicant Work Experience Report template for EACH FoP. Download template for ICCSSA Applicant Work Experience Report for EACH FoP here
   • WORK RELATED REFEREE REPORTS Applicants who apply for membership must have TWO work related referees for EACH FoP. The referee reports on the prescribed template must contain information in support of the applicant’s membership, which includes (but is not limited to) the following: referee’s personal knowledge of the applicant’s training and/or experience; applicant’s degree of responsibility in Statistical project deliverables; recommendation for membership in the field(s) of application. Download template for ICCSSA Referee Report for EACH FoP here 
8. To apply for ICCSSA membership you have to login to the ICCSSA website iccssa.org.za 
9. Once you are logged in you can navigate to https://www.iccssa.org.za/join-membership/ under the Membership tab.
10. Click on the button that says “Apply online” and follow the instructions.
11. If you are a first time user you will have to register before you can login.

Unfortunately at this stage Mathematical Sciences (including Statistics and Operations Research) is not on the critical skills list published by the Department of Home Affairs (Download Government Gazette, 3 June 2014) and as such, a critical skills visa would not be issued by the Department of Home Affairs. In addition, ICCSSA is not a statutory regulating body and hence if a candidate would like to apply for a critical skills visa (for a field on the critical skills list) then registration must be done with a statutory regulating body such as SACNASP and obtain a letter from the body on the verified skills.

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of the US Supreme Court defines professionalism as: “… a commitment to develop one’s skills to the fullest and to apply them responsibly to the problems at hand. Professionalism requires the adherence to the highest ethical standards of conduct and a willingness to subordinate narrow self-interest in pursuit of the more fundamental goal of public service”. It demands from professionals to “doing things right and doing the right things”.

The most essential characteristics to becoming a “complete” professional is when a person

• Holds appropriate qualifications
• Has relevant and specific work experience
• Undertakes continuous professional development (CPD)
• Abides by a Code of Conduct by his/her professional body

These are core for ICCSSA’s functioning and contained within the Bye-Laws of ICCSSA.

ICCSSA has been recognised since 19 February 2014 by the South African Qualification Authority (SAQA) as the statistical professional body in SA for the purposes of the National Qualifications Framework (NQF) Act, Act 67 of 2008 and SAQA has approved the registration of the Chartered Statistician (ChM) and Certificated Statistician (CeM) for professional designations on the NQF. Recently, ICCSSA received a clean audit from SAQA but were asked to develop the CPD programme before the next audit is conducted.

SASA since the 1950s has created a valuable platform for the statistical community in SA through its many flagships such as the SASA annual conference, the SA Statistical Journal, the SASA Newsletters, the Education Committee awarding many bursaries and scholarships over the years in statistics, the SASA chapters encouraging growth in the statistical community in various provinces, etc. The statistical fraternity felt there was a need for a professional body to create rigor in statistics and to better promote statistics in industry. When ICCSSA was first formed it was an associated body within SASA. The ICCSSA board has taken the decision to operate independently from SASA and not to be an associated body of SASA, but to form its own constitution and Bye-Laws. This was primarily because the operations of SASA and ICCSSA are very different and hence ICCSSA proposed at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of SASA in 2015 that ICCSSA will operate independently of SASA but will continue supporting each other towards building the statistical fraternity. This was accepted by SASA and since then ICCSSA board has been working closely with SASA on many joint activities. ICCSSA further encourages all ICCSSA members to belong to SASA since SASA does provide a number of valuable events and activities throughout the year for which ICCSSA members can benefit since these events and activities will contribute towards ICCSSA’s Continuous Professional Development (CPD) program.

Although SACNASP does registers scientists practicing in statistics, the challenge of registering with SACNASP is that SACNASP houses all scientists and hence with statistics being one of the fields of practice cannot differentiate between specialisations within statistics. Industry requires a statistician in a certain field of practice which is closer to what the statistician is practicing in, for e.g. Technometrics, Chemometrics or Econometrics, which is indistinguishable within SACNASP’s structure. Also there is a need to view and recognise the full value chain related to the statistical profession, for e.g. the design of questionnaires, surveys, data collection, data gathering, data capturing, data analysis, interpretation of results, decision making and communication of results, which will further complicate SACNASP’s ability to distinguish and recognise these competencies or essential support functions to a statistician. ICCSSA has the ability to distinguish and register various actors within the statistical value chain and is currently designing and formulating all related fields to be incorporated into the Bye-Laws of ICCSSA.