Khalid Sibtain
Islamabad: The inauguration ceremony of Training of Master trainers for the conduct of 7th Population Housing Census was held on 6th December, 2022 at National Institute of Banking and Finance (NIBAF), Islamabad. Prof. Ahsan Iqbal, Minister of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives was the Chief Guest. The Ceremony was also attended by Dr. Naeem uz Zafar, Chief Statistician/ Chief Census Commissioner, Members and other senior officers of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics.
The training will be conducted in 5 batches. These Master Trainers will further train trainers at division level who will further train enumerators at tehsil level. Hence training will be completed in three tiers and will be imparted by ethical, subject and IT experts from PBS and NADRA.
The main focus is on standardizing the concepts as the quality of training will ensure reliability of data collection. To achieve this target apart from conventional training and conceptual videos, real life examples case studies, mock exercise and FAQs have also been added. To make the sessions interactive the trainer’s involvement and questioning has been encouraged. Pre and Post-test and cross-questioning is also part of training.
The session started with welcome remarks from Dr. Naeem uz Zafar, Chief Statistician/Chief Census Commissioner. He thanked Minister Ahsan Iqbal, Provincial representatives, Stakeholders, Demographers and workers to grace the occasion with their presence. He informed the audience that with endless efforts of PBS, cooperation of Stakeholders and support of Government, PBS has been able to achieve the dream of completing all preliminary activities and move forward for trainings and enumeration.
Mr. Muhammad Sarwar Gondal, Member (Support Services) informed that the 7th population & housing Census will be the largest Digital activity of whole region. He further discussed the important features of digital census that include extensive planning, involvement of stakeholders, effective publicity campaign, trainings, geo tagging of structures, development of different modules of software, real time monitoring, quality assurance and provision of reliable results as per timeline.
Professor Ahsan Iqbal, Minister of Planning, Development, and Special Initiatives informed that resources cannot be provided without having a clear picture of population parameters. Census is important for policy making and planning. NFC awards and delimitation of boundaries are also linked with Population Census. He further added that Pakistan’s high rate of population increase is alarming while our resources are decreasing day by day, due to which our youth is deprived of basic opportunities.
He explained that three things have been kept in mind while planning and executing the project. First is taking on board Stakeholders, second is involvement of Academia and the third is hard work, as quality of efforts will ensure the quality of data. He appreciated PBS to launch 7th Population & Housing Census in shortest possible time. He then congratulated PBS for taking initiative of digital census and hoped to look forward for a successful census that will ensure transparency, credibility and accuracy to fulfill data needs for development and constitutional requirements.
