09th November 2016 Tonga’s Statistics Department is hosting a training for 92 participants at Epworth Hall aiming to enhance understanding about the national population census questions and how to utilise tablets during the census.
Statistician Winston Fainga’anuku said Tonga would be the first country in the Pacific to use tablets for its national population census and the 10 days training started October 31st were for trainers who would train enumerators in their respective zones.
“Tonga is the first country in the Pacific to use tablets for its national population census so this two weeks training is for the trainers and we often refer to it as ‘training of trainers’. The trainers will be assigned to a particular place where they will run workshops for enumerator from November 14-25 based on what we have discussed here,” he said.
Fainga’anuku said the shift from manual to Computer Assistant Personal Interview (CAPI) was new to most of the participants.
“The shift from manual to CAPI is still very new to participants and through this training the trainers learn about how to use the tablets during the census and we also go through the questions that will be used in the census so that the trainers can fully understand them and will be able to teach enumerators about the new initiative.”
According to Fainga’anuku the program that the enumerators and supervisors would be using was specifically designed for the census.
“The program is similar to the apps in the google play and it was designed through collaboration with SPC and myself. The questions are in English and Tongan,” he said.
“The shift to CAPI will achieve efficiency for instance in the past years if an enumerator does not understand some of the questions the particular households assigned to that individual will be inaccurate. Now using tablets will allow supervisors to check the data and will be able to make correction if errors will be made. The technology will also allow enumerators to collect information such as the locations (GPS) of the houses.”
“In the past using manual print out forms would take six months for data entry, checking, coding and the editing and compiling the report would take more than two months. Now we have the tablets to ensure data quality and improve the timeliness of data collection.
The National Population Census will be conducted on November 28 – December 16.
ENDS
Issued by the: Ministry of Meteorology, Energy, Information, Disaster Management, Environment, Climate Change and Communications
