Census 2022 has been extended
. If you haven’t participated yet, worry not. You still have time.
StatsSA, in conjunction with the Stats Council, have decided to extend Census 2022 enumeration (personal and telephone interviewing) to 20 March 2022. Registration for remote data collection, however, remains closed.
With just a few days left, field workers are pleading with the community to assist them by participating. “ One of our biggest challenges has been getting people to participate, more specifically students,” Thuso Phoka explained.
“ It’s either they are too busy or they simply refuse.
Things would be much easier if everyone cooperated,” he added.
Another field worker said another challenge they experienced was people being skeptical to let them in. “In a country with such a high crime rate, it’s not overreacting to mistrust the intentions of strangers trying to get access to your home or your personal information,” she said.
“Each field worker’s photo and information has been loaded to the census website and can easily be verified,” she explained.
If you still feel that’s not enough, fieldworkers will be in green regalia, have identification and no form of paperwork is being used as this is the first digital census, therefore all fieldworkers go around carrying tablets.
Who is required to participate
It is compulsory for all South Africans to take part in the census as it attempts to collect data from everyone, unlike a survey that only collects data from selected respondents. A census is, therefore, the only source for community-level data on issues such as migration patterns, education, persons with disabilities, employment and unemployment, fertility, mortality and service delivery, all of which are critical for planning. Therefore everyone is urged to cooperate with the fieldworkers and give them complete and accurate data.
Legally, Section 16 of the Statistics Act (Act 6 of 1999) obliges a respondent to answer all questions put to them by an officer of Statistics South Africa. Section 17 of the act guarantees the confidentiality of your information. The data collected is used for statistical purposes only and no one can access data on an individual level.
