October 6, 2021
By: Dadson A. Musa
Plans are well underway to ensure the accurate and successful completion of the mid-term census.
Training is now ongoing for the pilot phase of the census as 500 Sierra Leoneans have been drawn from across the country to be involved in this exercise. The training is well planned, systematic, and highly technical and aims to correct the anomalies in the 2015 census. The theoretical aspect precedes the practical aspect and after which the trainees will be sent out to get a feel of the way a digital census is conducted.
Sierra is going to be the fourth country in Africa to undertake this digital census. And it is going to be the first time in the country’s history to move away from paper census to a computerized one.
In this year’s census, there will be no room for deliberate filling of wrong figures into the system. It has been ensured that nobody will stay in his comfort zone and give fictitious data as this will be rejected by the system. The Statistician General, Professor Osman Conteh told the trainees that the farthest distance one can be from the field for the ‘tablet to accept any data is 20 meters’.
Implying that if you are not on the field the system can detect it easily. It is an expensive process but this has to be done to ensure ‘credible data for national development.’ The training lasts for 13 days and the employment is going to be merit-based. The trainees are going to sit to an examination which is going to qualify them for undertaking the pilot census very shortly.
The pilot census is going to be a ‘dress rehearsals’ for the actual census as corrections and adjustments will be made for the actual census in December.
So the rumors making the rounds that this census is not timely and a waste of time and resources has been laid to rest. As no country can plan and progress without a correct, credible and thorough data which will help the country to make informed decisions. The cartographic mapping has been done which has laid a solid groundwork for the census itself to carry on and be successful. Sponsors of this census include; World Bank, UNFPA, Kenyan government, government of Sierra Leone and other development partners. The president had to remove the Statistician General, Professor Sankoh from the principal position at Njala University just so that he can concentrate on the important issue of census. Trainees are encouraged to treat the exercise as a national development issue and have also been cautioned not to politicize it. The training itself is been done by Sierra Leoneans with international consultants supervising. After being postponed twice, the digital mid- term census is finally here for the good of Sierra Leone.