Teachers given week off to complete census

By ALISON ANIS

 

TEACHERS who need to complete the census this week have been excused from their schools, The National reports.

Chairman and careta­ker for the Teaching Ser­vice Commission Jerry Kuhena said the holiday had been extended for another week for the teachers in census sites which were running behind schedule.

Other teachers, who had completed their tasks in the census, had returned to school when classes resumed yesterday.

Meanwhile, regional census co-ordinators for Momase and New Guinea Islands declined to give any details on counting in their provinces saying they had forwarded all information to the National Statistical Office  (NSO) and the national census director.

Momase co-ordinator Dennis Gonnisso told The National from Lae yesterday that he had already sent updates to the NSO.

He declined to give any details on the status of counting in Morobe, Madang, East and West Sepik.

Apart from parts of the Highlands region, Madang is reportedly behind with the counting beginning only yesterday.

Census coordinator for Southeast (Central, Mil­ne Bay, Northern and National Capital District) Kila Geberi said he had not received any updates from the four provinces.

“All I can say is that census is progressing well for Northern, Milne Bay and Central.

“However, we have yet to receive census updates from co­ordinators from these provinces,” Geberi said.

He refused to comment on whether his officers had encountered any problems during the week.

The NCD coordinating team reported that zone managers were doing quality checks on information gathered by field officers during the census week.

“We are also sorting out final payments for those who participated in the census listings.

“These may be ready by Wednesday (tomorrow), while mop-up exercise for NCD may be introduced next week but that depends entirely on how fast the officers will send in the completed workload with all the listings from the census,” Geberi said.