Some 85 000 census takers (or enumerators) will take to the streets from Wednesday October 10 to gather information from approximately 10-million households across the country.
Unlike most other statistical surveys, a census must gather information from every single member of society.
According to Mpho Tsedu, Census 2001 training co-ordinator at Statistics SA, they will be very prepared. This preparedness will be achieved because of lessons learned in the country’s last census in 1996 and a pilot census that was run nationwide in March this year.
“We quickly discovered that the cascading model we adopted for pilot census training – where census supervisors trained enumerators – was not adequate. The training message was getting distorted as it went further down the line,” says Tsedu.
“In order to standardise the learning experience, we developed multimedia materials to ensure that the message stays consistent and can be quickly transmitted to various regions,” Tsedu says.
The principles of outcomes-based education and the National Qualifications Framework were incorporated as far as possible in the programme.
With the lessons learned from the pilot, Statistics SA swung into the next phase of training which involved 1 200 fieldwork coordinators training about 35 enumerators each in 1 200 training venues over two sessions of five days each. Supervisors will join enumerators in this training to help the fieldwork coordinators during enumerator-group work. The target date for completion of training was October 5.
– The Teacher/M&G Media, Johannesburg, October 2001.