Chairman National Population Commission, NPC, Alhaji Nasir Isa Kwarra believes that the participants at the TOT will re-evaluate the skills and practical demonstrations of operations in the field with the overall effort to deliver a truly scientific Trial Census that can prepare the ground for a credible and acceptable census next year.
Isa Kwarra made the remark in Nasarawa state on Monday at the opening of the Commission’s Masters Trainers Workshop For the Trial Census.
He said the Workshop for the Trial Census, which holds from 30th of May to 3rd of June, is designed to train the facilitators, who will in turn carry out the Zonal level trainings of the enumerators and other field functionaries in readiness for the Trial Census.
The Trial census, also known as the “census dress rehearsal”, is one of the pre-census activities. It is a process in which all census operations are tested in a detailed and comprehensive manner.
Isa Kwarra expressed that “This takes place, ideally and as a matter of best practice, one year ahead of the actual census date, when major external circumstances, such as season (weather), holiday periods, school year schedule, etc. can be expected to be like when the census proper will be conducted. The Trial census tests all phases of the main census, from planning to the execution of the plans, logistics arrangement and management, questionnaire design and format, training procedures, fieldwork operations, publicity, payment system, data processing, data tabulations and analysis.
“For this particular Trial Census exercise, the objectives include to critically and comprehensively:
• Assess the quality and the usefulness of the EA maps that had been created,
• Determine the possible demographic as well as geographical changes that might have occurred in the EAs carved between 2016-2018 and their implications for census taking,
• Determine the feasibility of uploading EA maps on the census app for house numbering and household listing as well as population enumeration,
• Determine the correlation between EAD estimated population and the pre-test enumerated population,
• Determine the requisite educational qualification for the 2023 census’ enumerators,
• To determine the appropriateness of the estimated workload of the enumerators and
• To determine the necessary logistics support that might be required from the states and LGAs.
According to him, the Trial Census shall cover thirty-six states and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT. Six LGAs shall be selected from six States in the six geo-political zones of Nigeria for full population enumeration while forty-five (45) EAs shall be selected from each of the thirty-one States. In total, four thousand, six hundred and eight (4,068) EAs have been selected for this Trial Census to test run their suitability and readiness for the actual census.
“The quality of the personnel for the Trial Census has a great impact on its outcomes. The need to properly train the facilitators who will in turn train the supervisors and the enumerators at the zonal and state level cannot be over-emphasized. For the next few days, participants at the TOT will re-evaluate the skills and practical demonstrations of operations in the field with the overall effort to deliver a truly scientific Trial Census that can prepare the ground for a credible and acceptable census next year.
“Therefore, the conduct of this workshop and the training of facilitators is our strategy of making sure that the continuous journey we make for the next Census is strong and error-proof.
“For us in the four thousand, six hundred and eight (4,068) EAs have been selected for this Trial Census to test run their suitability and readiness for the actual census computers that can run a variety of software programs. Based on the above, the data collection in the Trial census shall be Computer Assisted Personal Interviews (CAPI).
“To ensure that the Trial Census does not lose focus in view of predetermined objectives and processes, monitoring and evaluation (M&E) instruments have been developed to assess the extent to which objectives are being met or not and whether the processes are being adhered to or not.
“In executing this onerous task, this present Commission knows the importance of staff to the overall success of the Trial Census exercise and other Commission’s activities and will treat both items as the top priority and work assiduously to better the lots of staff. To whom much is given much is expected. Therefore, you are expected to exemplify the highest moral and ethical conduct and put in more hard work which is needed for the overall success of the Commission.
“The present Commission under my leadership is committed to training and re-training members of staff with the belief that this will help the Commission in the effective delivery of its mandate. It is worthy of note, that this workshop has been put together to enhance the technical and managerial capacity and skills of the participants to teach other field functionaries for the success of the Trial Census exercise.
I am therefore, confident that the knowledge and skills to be acquired at this workshop will no doubt place officers in key position to function more effectively. It is my hope that the deliberations at this workshop will also impact positively on all aspects of the preparations and execution of the 2023 Population and Housing Census. I urge participants to devote maximum attention to deliberations at this workshop and maximise this golden opportunity presented to you by the Commission to expand your horizon in the understanding of the processes of census-taking”.
