We’re Ready for the Aug 2019 Census – KNBS Says

164,700 youth has been recruited to participate in the oncoming census exercise, the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) announced on Monday.

Director General Zachary Mwangi, while making the announcement, said out of these, 2,700 will be ICT supervisors, 27,000 content supervisors and 135,000 enumerators for the population census to be conducted between August 24 and 25 at a cost of Sh18.5 billion..

The state agency also said that training of the recruited supervisors and enumerators will begin on July 15. The ICT supervisors will train the content supervisors who will in turn train the enumerators for the digital census.

The census will cover a wide data set including demographics, disability, education, labour force, ICT, Agriculture, housing conditions and amenities as well as household assets.

The census 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 during the media briefing at KICC on Monday morning.

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 captured data will be key for planning, policy formulation and decision making.

The census is held every 10 years and 2009 marked the 5th census in post-independence Kenya. This will be the first time Kenya will have its first digital census.

“The census is more than a population count: it provides all levels of government, business, industry, media, academia and independent organisations with social, economic and demographic information that is essential for making decisions regarding the many services each provides to the public,” Mwangi said.

During the exercise, agents will be issued with tablets that will have an application to help collect the data. The enumeration clerks will be required to feed data into the gadgets before it is transmitted to a central database.

The organisation has so far conducted a cartographic mapping across the country in preparation for the census.

“The cartographic involves delineating the country into Enumeration areas,” KNBS said in a statement.