New technology being used to compile census data -Benjamin
Stabroek News
August 3, 2002
The introduction of new technologies will improve the accuracy and speed with which information generated by the upcoming population and housing census will be made available to the public.
Chief Statistician Lennox Benjamin told Stabroek News that consultants from Chile have completed training his staff in the use of the high-speed scanners, which the Statistical Bureau has recently acquired. The scanners will be used for inputting information from the questionnaires used by the census enumerators to obtain details about the persons living in their enumeration districts.
Benjamin said that with the introduction of scanners, the first set of information from the census would become available as early as February and more detailed information about the population in June. Another innovation, he said, is the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology to improve the maps of the enumeration districts to be used in the census.
Benjamin explained that while the bureau has no GIS capacity as yet, it has benefited from the services of a GIS technician from Trinidad and Tobago. This assistance, he said, has allowed to the bureau to digitize information to be included on the regional maps to be used during the census.
Benjamin said that the bureau is one of the agencies being exposed to technology through the Guyana Natural Resources Agency.
Census will provide key data for public, private agencies -Benjamin
The Population and Housing Census which gets underway on September 16 will generate a mother lode of information which agencies in the public and private sectors would find useful.
In a recent interview with Stabroek News, Chief Statistician Lennox Benjamin said that among the information that would be generated would be age of the nation's housing stock as well as the materials used in the construction.
Benjamin said that the construction industry would be able to determine from this information, the amount of rehabilitation and new construction work that would be coming on stream and the type of materials that would be needed for the rehabilitation that would have to be undertaken.
The income distribution among the population could also help to indicate to the construction industry the type of housing in demand and what the future demand is likely to be.
The age distribution of the population in the various locations would also provide government agencies such as the ministries of Education and Health as to the adequacies of the facilities they provide in those areas and what adjustments would be necessary to adequately service them.
The private sector would also find the information useful in determining the location of new businesses or the expansion of existing ones. Benjamin says that the bureau could provide more customised information such as the level of education and the skills available in the working age population in particular areas that could assist investors to determine the location of their businesses and the services those businesses should offer.