Chief census methodologist at the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), Owusu Kagya, has disclosed that the Service intends working with some academia in a bid to churn out analytic reports to the public.
According to him, this has become necessary looking at policy relevance and cross-cutting topics which will help in “policy decision making” in the country.
Mr Kagya was of the opinion that the provision of raw data to the public will equally engender the work of researchers.
“We also intend working closely with the academia to come out with some analytic report that will also try to answer some policy relevant issues. Then also, we intend making the raw data available. These are issues from our own perspectives we think will help policy decision making. But beyond that we also can have individual researchers [and] government may want to do something outside what we have done. So, that is the essence of giving the raw data”.
Mr Owusu Kagya
Going forward, he intimated that in celebration of the annual statistical week, the Service intends “coming out with the final results”. This, he expressed, will go beyond what “we will be releasing next week”.
“So, here in November, what we try to do is to make sure that all the variables that were measured in the census, we’ll have information on. So, talking about ICT, employment, education, sanitation, housing and all these variables that we measured, we’ll make the information available. Next year, we are looking at [a] thematic report… here we are trying to expand it to about twenty-three or so thematic report”.
Mr Owusu Kagya
Ghana’s census instrument
Commenting on how the Service collected data on variables such as literacy, education and fertility, Mr Kagya explained that his outfit designed a “consultative instrument” with key stakeholders to ensure questions asked led to an improvement in the country.
Subsequently, he noted that for a variable like education they considered three main areas. These includes whether an individual has ever schooled, is a drop-out or thoroughly schooled.
“Our [Ghana’s] census instrument is more detailed than the usual census instrument that [are used]. You go elsewhere and you’re looking at just a two-page questionnaire… But Ghana since 2000 decided to add on more questions… So, key stakeholders met and that is how come we even added on the population bit of the census.
“Talking about let’s say if it’s education, we had about 3% or so that was related to education”.
Mr Owusu Kagya
Release of provisional results on census
Touching on the release of the census figures next week, Mr Kagya clarified that the information which will be made available will be “more limited”. According to him, it’s a quick picture as to what the population is.
Also, he disclosed that under consideration are the male and female composition as well as the regional distribution of persons in the country.
“And so, you’ll know the provisional numbers; what the population is as a country”.
Mr Owusu Kagya
Additionally, the household dynamics of the census according to Mr Kagya “is to compare how households in terms of numbers have evolved”.
“Now, if you go to our GHS for instance, you realise a decline in our household size and so we want to find out what’s happening. Even the composition these days, we find one member household… and so we want to see the trend with what’s happening”.
Mr Owusu Kagya
