With just two months remaining until the start of Belize’s 2020 Population and Housing Census, the Statistical Institute of Belize (SIB) held its first round of training for census staff during the last two weeks in February. The participants in this training were comprised mostly of permanent staff of various departments within the SIB, who have been designated Regional Census Coordinators and Assistant Regional Census Coordinators.
Over the two-week period, trainees were provided with a thorough overview of the household and individual census questionnaires, as well as their responsibilities as senior supervisors in the various field offices. Since the 2020 Census will be conducted using CAPI, several days were also dedicated to the use of the CAPI application for data collection and the SIB Collect mapping application. Trainees had the opportunity to gain first-hand experience in conducting the census interviews through one full day of field practice. An additional two days in early March were dedicated to orienting these supervisors to the suite of census management applications developed in-house by the SIB. Given the heavy reliance on computer applications for the conduct of the 2020 Census, this training was facilitated jointly by statistical subject area specialists and IT staff.
The Regional Census Coordinators and their Assistant Coordinators will conduct the second round of training, during the second half of March, for 130 census Field Supervisors. These Field Supervisors, under the supervision of SIB’s permanent staff, will then go on to facilitate the final round of training in April, in which about 700 enumerators will be prepared for data collection. Training of all enumerators will be conducted simultaneously in training sites across the country’s six districts, in groups of up to 25 trainees, and will also cover the questionnaire content as well as the required IT applications.
Belize’s 2020 Population and Housing Census is set to commence on May 12, 2020 and is projected to be completed within eight weeks.
