Digital maps to aid in census data gathering

Daunting hills and winding paths are just some of the various obstacles shared by residents who expressed concerns about how enumerators will achieve success in accounting for all residents once the long-overdue census begins next month.

However, while agreeing that much may have changed since the last census was done over a decade ago, Director of the Central Statistics Office (CSO), Raymond Phillips, said the use of technology will likely ease many of those concerns.

Unlike what obtained previously, where enumerators only carried paper maps of the territory, Phillips said he expects that there will now be access to digital maps going forward.

One resident, who phoned into the government’s Public Eye programme where Phillips appeared this week, indicated that no one counted him during the last census in 2010.

In the past, Phillips said there may well have been instances where enumerators did not know that houses existed in certain locations, unless they were told of this before. However, Phillips assured residents that this time around, those persons that were missed in the last census will definitely be captured by his enumerators.

“We are going to be using digital maps this time around and our Town and Country Planning Department, they have updated the maps using drone technology,” Phillips shared.

He further explained that the Department does flyovers and assigns unique numbers to each of the houses in a given area.

Responding to questions about how enumerators will get to certain hard-to-reach areas, Phillips encouraged his staff to start in the middle. “The instruction that I would want to give to some of the enumerators is to, you know, when you get to an area, you know, park somewhere in the middle and then try to do the rest on foot,” he stated.

The CSO Director explained that many of his enumerators are females and pointed out that some of the roads around the territory could be ‘downright scary’.

“I’m not being biased as it relates to male or female drivers, but some of the roads can be down right scary. And I’ve had experiences where, you know, some persons, male and female alike refuse to actually drive on some of those roads,” Phillips said.

He continued: “But as I said earlier, with the digital maps, hopefully we’ll know that a house is in there somewhere and we’ll find a way to get to it.”