Many go through life without any knowledge of themselves even at the most rudimentary level. To lead and participate in life Morena Mohlomi, the mentor of Moshoeshoe, advises that to lead as a responsible person, you should know yourself. Socrates argues that a life unexamined is not a worthy life.
Measurement and interrogation of life is a subject of statistics. Google the picture of Prof Jacky Galpin on the web, this is all you will see — graphs. This was her work life. Besides the dogs that filled her home, all you see are graphs.
Prof Galpin, the grey-haired retired statistics professor at Wits University, former member of the Statistics Association of South Africa and a distinguished member of the Statistics Council of South Africa, is no more. The decision tree has dried and an examination of life has rapidly run the risk of glossolalia, innuendo and brinkmanship.
Galpin was passionate about the subject of statistics. She looked ahead and thought of future generations. During her career in the last 30 years she sat at the junction of tuition and practice. She was a jewel and in those years I worked with her closely. In those years there was only one huge explosion and she wanted out. Howard Gabriels, then chair of the Statistics Council, intervened successfully. A misunderstanding had occurred between a summative comment I made against a generic challenge and the work into which she had put arduous hours.
A lovely human being, she and I were once deeply immersed in the subject of statistics tuition at school level and in the general public. Johnny “Black Sunday” Masegela, a great Pirates player who retired from active sports to work at Stats SA, had an innovative programme on soccer statistics. In animated fashion Galpin would have her brain run ahead of her on how this would be helpful to count incidents and generate critical statistics for analysis. So she exclaimed confidently how an excited spectator would respond and record the incident or observation: “Pali, this Soccer4Statistics Programme is so innovative and you can see how for instance a try can be recorded on the system and analysed afterwards.”
Jacky’s misgivings were too obvious as she said, minister, how can you undermine statistics? That question went a long way and [Trevor] Manuel would be the most ardent supporter of statistical endeavours not only in South Africa but on the continent.
We all burst into laughter, and the good professor looked around with great astonishment at the excitement that filled the room at the mention of “a try”. She had no clue about soccer rules but could relate and transpose the excitement of rugby to soccer.
The indefatigable Galpin came to me to discuss an important matter in 2002. It was about teaching statistics. South Africa had secured the rights to host the International Conference for the Teaching of Statistics (ICOTS6). She and Prof Delia North of KwaZulu-Natal were instrumental on this programme. I recall meeting North, beaming with excitement on a short transit at the then Jan Smuts Airport to the plane and asking “have you heard?”
I played on as though I knew North and focused on what I would have heard. She rattled on with excitement on ICOTS. Galpin the firebrand was ready to roll: “Pali, the politics have put their foot in statistics.”
I asked what is this about, Jacky? The AU is launching in Durban in the same week of ICOTS6 and the politicians will have none of us in Durban. We had to change gear and look for an alternative venue and Cape Town it was, meaning more expenses for travel and hotels, and the ministry of foreign affairs threw the book at us. We had to absorb all the inconvenience, a mere four weeks from ICOTS6. The politics won the day and statistics had been dethroned by the launch of the AU.
Galpin and I went into overdrive to work on schedule changes and hotel bookings. In the end we had ICOTS6. She was not one to be defeated. Then-minister Trevor Manuel was our keynote speaker and he had just arrived from Durban where ICOTS was unceremoniously thrown out. Galpin’s misgivings were too obvious as she said, minister, how can you undermine statistics? That question went a long way and Manuel would be the most ardent supporter of statistical endeavours not only in South Africa but on the continent.
We were able to mobilise a good number of teachers to accompany us to ICOTS7 in Bahia, Brazil four years later. In the four years before Bahia, the teaching-of-statistics programme had gained momentum and in our estimate the ingredients of success were clear. The idea was fantastic and elegant, but the bureaucracy, especially in education, was a drag.
However, we were able to collaborate on the matter of census@schools, which Galpin drew my attention to early in 2001. The Australians had been more successful in popularising the idea of census@schools and we in South Africa became more innovative by gearing it towards promoting Census 2001, and Manuel and Kader Asmal regaled the primary schoolchildren we visited in Mitchells Plain, promoting the census@schools.
It was clear the census@schools was a good idea. In fact, when one of the young girls was interviewed about how she experienced it, she delivered a profound answer. Possibly a real “try” in Galpin’s language. She said, before census@school I did not know how tall I was. So profound was the statement that it invokes Mohlomi’s code of know yourself and know those you wish to lead — Socrates’s commitment to the value of an examined life.
Galpin would be my right-hand woman when we went to hand in the bid to host the very first International Statistics Institute in Africa. We were in Germany for the 54th Session, where we presented the bid, only to be called back home for performance assessment and then in Australia for the 55th Session, where the right to host was affirmed. Finally, we were in Portugal for the 56th Session, where we wooed all and sundry to come to Durban in 2009 for the 57th Session of the ISI.
Galpin was a soldier leading from the front. She was a detailed planner and said our stand should sell South Africa. Among the goodies we took was biltong and it became an instant winner in Sydney.
With Galpin we mobilised a specific course that would embrace official statistics and a number of statisticians from Stats SA attended, only with the displeasure that when crisis hit at base I behaved like the AU; I recalled some of the students back to base to man the vessel. This put me in Galpin's bad books . This was especially because for the course to succeed through the senate at Wits, she had worked so hard. I recall how we had to work round the clock and at 7am I was at her house where we had to exchange seats with her army of dogs that decorated every space you could sit on. She had countless dogs that shared every area of the house.
Our fight with Galpin came in 2005 and she did a walkout on me. After I delivered my opening remarks at the Commonwealth Conference of Statisticians in 2005, she was not impressed. As I sat down receiving congratulations, she said, 'Statistician-General, I am leaving tomorrow, I felt insulted by your speech.' So I realised that my speech that addressed the huge challenge was misinterpreted to mean nothing was happening and she was livid given her effort. The royal “we are doing too little to address the problem” did not sit well with her. Tears were rolling down her face. We went outside to cool our heads and within 10 minutes, it was all peaceful and Galpin would go for a try.
Galpin and I co-authored and published the paper Statistical literacy in South Africa: ICOTS6 and beyond. She is no more. We remain the poorer, and may her soul rest in peace.
• Dr Pali Lehohla is a professor of practice at the University of Johannesburg, a research associate at Oxford University, and a distinguished alumni of the University of Ghana. He is the former statistician-general of South Africa.
For opinion and analysis consideration, e-mail Opinions@timeslive.co.za
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