National Population Commission (NPC), on Friday, said it was intensifying preparations for the conduct of a trial census in nine local government areas in Ebonyi, ahead of the 2023 national census.
NPC’s Federal Commissioner in the state, Mr Darlington Okereke, stated this at a news conference in Abakaliki.
Okereke said that the commission had begun training for 90 enumerators and nine supervisors, drawn from the selected nine council areas in the state.
He listed the local government areas to include: Abakaliki, Izzi, Ohaukwu, Ezza South, Ezza North, Ishielu, Afikpo North, Onicha and Ivo.
Okereke said that a total of 7,718 enumeration areas had been selected nationwide for the trial census to test run the suitability and readiness for the actual census in 2023.
According to him, the trial census, also known as the ‘census dress rehearsal’, is a process in which all census operations are tested in a detailed and comprehensive manner.
“In line with the approval of the Federal Government, the trial census will be conducted from June 27 to July 30 nationwide.
“The timeliness for the trial census activities are: 12 days for training of field functionaries in the state; three days for validation of enumeration area (EA) frame; five days for enumeration of persons and five days for mop-up enumeration.
“The trial census will test all aspects of census operations, from planning to implementation, including logistics arrangement management, questionnaire design and format, training procedures and fieldwork operations, amongst others.
“Others are: publicity, payment system, data processing, data tabulations and analysis.
“The specific objectives are to assess the quality and the usefulness of EA map that has been created.
“It is also to determine the possible demographic as well as geographical changes that might have occurred between 2016 and 2018, and their implications for census taking, amongst others,” he stated.
The NPC commissioner noted that the outcome of the trial census would not form the basis of the 2023 census.
One of the trainees for the trial census, Mrs Clementina Obeta, said that she was elated to be part of the training, noting that she looked forward to acquiring the much- needed knowledge to effectively carry out the task. (NAN)
