Iran is now among the few countries that use electronic devices such as tablets for conducting the population and housing census.
A trial is underway for a census of population and housing via two approaches, in-person and electronically. It started on October 13 and will last until November 25, said Alireza Zahedian, deputy head for Statistical Surveys and Administrative Registers, Statistical Center of Iran.
Tablets are employed to improve communication and collaboration, cut costs, save time, and increase efficiency, while boosting supervision over census personnel nationwide, ISNA reported.
Zahedian said electronic literacy can be achieved with proper planning and management and “will be able to significantly improve census coverage. This index in Iran currently stands at 39%.”
Boosting electronic literacy will bring in profound change in organizational form and processes, he added.
Regional Workshop
In September, a regional workshop on ‘Improving Use of Administrative Data in Production of Official Statistics: Role of Statistical Register Systems’ was held in Tehran. It was organized by the Statistical Institute for Asia and the Pacific (SIAP) as part of the training program to help improve technical capacity of national statistical systems.
The program also provided a platform to share knowledge and demonstrate good practices in developing statistical data from administrative registers.
Information and communications technology (ICT) is an empowering tool and plays a pivotal role in gathering and collecting vital population statistics based on which development goals can be set.
Today, electronic technology, skills and competency are needed more than ever before in order to keep pace with socioeconomic and cultural developments. ICT is expected to help the SCI’s access to high quality inclusive and cost-effective services in national surveys. Annual household survey-based data is essential for supervising national goals and targets.
