Census equipment to be assembled at JKUAT, paperless process

The 2019 population census scheduled to be conducted next month will for the first time be a paperless process as the government seeks to make use of technology to obtain a complete count of all Kenyans.

According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) Director General, Zachary Mwangi, data entry will be done through mobile electronic devices assembled at Moi University and Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT).

“This was informed by the fact that these two universities did participate in the digital literacy programme for the assembly of the tablets for primary schools. This has led to creation of many jobs for the youth in the assembly and programming of these devices,” said Mr. Mwangi.

He was speaking at KICC during a media briefing on the progress of preparations for the 2019 Kenya Population and Housing Census set to cost Ksh.18.5 billion.

Through use of technology, transmission of data collected to the servers will be real time, a move expected to significantly reduce the time taken to release the census results.

“The 2019 census will be the first to make use of technology. It will be a paperless process, and will use mobile technology for Cartographic Mapping as well as Enumeration,” said the KNBS boss.

The programme to be used in collection of the census data, according to Mr. Mwangi, has already been designed and tested.

“First we tested this programme during the pilot in August 2018 then we have gone further and had two retests and we are very confident about our data capture programme,” said Mr. Mwangi.

The field catographic mapping, which entails dividing the whole country into smaller units called enumeration areas, has also been completed.

The exercise has been designed to cover a wide data set including demographics, disability, education, labour force, ICT, Agriculture, housing conditions and amenities as well as household assets. This, he said, will be key for planning, policy formulation and decision making.

A total of 174,700 personnel will be hired for the exercise set to be conducted on August 24 and 25, 2019.

The personnel — 12,700 ICT supervisors, 27,000 content supervisors and 135,000 enumerators — will undergo training between July 15 and August 21.

Kenya has conducted seven population census in the past with the first being in 1948, followed by 1962, 1969, 1979, 1989, 1999 and 2009.