Final Preparations underway for Census 2025, residents encouraged to participate

Around 400 numerators and 100 supervisors will be deployed for Census 2025.

These individuals will be recruited and trained on census concepts, definitions, and methodology before data collection begins later this year.

The public is being asked to cooperate and assured that all safety and security protocols will be in place.

“These individuals will be properly dressed and identified. We need everyone on board and answer the questions. It is very important for us to get this data. We all need the data for student research, government planning, policy makers, investment opportunities. If we don’t have the data for us to do proper planning then, we will be left behind. There are a lot of indicators we need to measure, and you cannot just capture it just like that,” Deputy Census Officer Tracelyn Joseph urged.

Prime Minister Gaston Browne officially announced June 25, 2025, as Census Day for the 2025 National Census.

A launch was held earlier this week.

This census is not an immigration exercise so for those individuals who may be worried, they do not need to be.

The Census was originally scheduled for 2021 but was delayed due to COVID-19 and other issues.

The work will be carried out by the Census and the National Bureau of Statistics (formerly Statistics Division).

They too are undergoing new upgrades.

The first phase will establish the legal and procedural framework before Census 2025, while the second phase will focus on expanding the national statistical system after the Census is completed.

This will be the first time, where a high technology system will be used for the census.

A welcomed initiative by Joseph.

“In 2011, we would have used paper and sometimes when we are ready to clean the data, we do not understand the handwriting of our field staff so we have challenges but using computer assisted personal interviewer that allows us to speed up the interview, it allows us to go faster when we are going to edit the data, it allows us to go back.

“Because we are using digital now, its a source of us controlling persons on the field as you have to turn on the GPS and we know for sure, you went to this household,” Joseph added.

Census 2025 is under the theme “Census 2025: Mapping the Present, Shaping the Future”.

The Slogan was chosen during a competition where a ten-year-old student at the Villa Primary School won.

Asahi Joseph won $500, a certificate and a Samsung Tablet.

Boxes were sent to the various schools during January to March last year where slogans were submitted. Two hundred and forty-nine entries were made, 73 were disqualified.

The next Census is due in 2031.