The Ellembelle District Census Officer, Mr Isaac Polley, has expressed worry over how a section of the public was “playing politics” with the census exercise and called for a stop to the practice.

He said it was a national exercise and field officers were selected based on merit and not on political affiliation.

Mr Polley was speaking at the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) 10-day intensive training workshop for potential field officers in the Ellembelle District of the Western Region.

He said the primary purpose of the training was to help participants to know the concepts and definitions of the Census, as well as their duties and responsibilities as field officers for the enumeration.

The GSS is training 280 persons out of which 160 would be selected as field officers to enumerate structures and residents of the District.

Mr Polley said the training would adopt a participant-centred approach, which involved lectures, video presentations, face-to-face interactions, mock interviews, assessment and field practice.

He said small group discussions using English and local languages would be used to ensure that concepts, definitions and procedures for collecting data were well understood.

It is also expected that each participant would be able to interpret and use an Enumeration Area (EA) Chart, carry out listing of structures and complete a listing form.

They would also be taught how to enumerate a household population, institutional population and floating population using the CAPI system.

Mr Polley said each trainee had been given a hard copy of the Field Officer’s Manual, questionnaire and tablet among other things for the training.

“This is a national exercise and for the next few days we will require you to sacrifice your time and your energy. Despite the full-time requirements, we hope that you will find time outside of the training to reflect on what you are being taught here”, he said.

The listing of structures is slated for June 13, 2021 across the country with census Night being June 27, 2021.

The enumeration of persons in households and long-stay institutions would be enumerated from 28th June to 11th July, 2021.