Data Quality Check (QC) of the 2019 National Population and Housing Census is currently underway at the National Statistics Office/Census Office in Honiara.
This was after all the census filled forms from all the provinces were collected and registered by the census office over the past months.
The census office has recruited Quality Checkers and Coders on a short-term contract basis and now they have begun work since last week.
Most of the officers were part of the National Statistics Office’s (NSO), previous surveys and the recent 2019 Census.
Government Statistician and Census Commissioner Douglas Kimi said this is a crucial aspect in any census major operation to make sure information that will be provided in the final report is of quality.
“No matter how well a census or a survey is organized, it is challenging to assure that quality data is collected. Therefore, it is very important to arrange various data checks before data are prepared for final report analysis and disseminated to the public.
“There is no perfect census in this world but we strived our best to produce data that is of eminence and trustworthy so that government can be aligned with its policies,” Mr. Kimi stated.
He said that data entry work will happen in due course after all data quality check is done.
The Solomon Islands 2019 National Population and Housing Census was conducted from 4th November to 8th December last year.
It was the biggest ever census operation with about 3,000 field officers (enumerators and supervisors) being recruited by the Census Office and carried out the data collection across the country compared to previous censuses, and in a short period of time.
Also, it is the biggest-ever census attempted in our development history in terms of the scope and nature of questions being asked from the current population. These include questions about the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of individuals within private households and non-private dwellings such as age, gender, religion, occupation, education, disability, economic activity financial inclusion, natural disaster and even a question on the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) was asked.
Solomon Islands had its first census count in 1970, the second was in 1976, and again in 1986, 1999, 2009 and the latest and the sixth one in the series was in 2019.
Census is the official count of how many people and dwellings there are in the country (SI). It gives a unique snapshot of our communities. Information from the census helps determine how government funding is spent in the community.
A preliminary count of the 2019 National Population census is anticipated for mid-2020 while the comprehensive national analysis report is planned for release mid next year, 2021 to be followed by specialised policy-demanded topical analysis such as gender, fertility, etc.
