The Government Statistician, Dr Grace Bediako, has urged Information Officers to sensitize the public on the forthcoming 2010 population and housing census.
She was addressing a two day sensitization workshop for 400 Regional, District Information Officers and mobile cinema communicators in Kumasi.
The officers were drawn from all the 170 districts of the ten regions of the country.
The participants were taken through topics like the overview of the 2010 population and housing census, the concept and definitions, the role of communicators and the strategies to disseminate the 2010 population and housing messages.
Explaining the modalities of the Census, Dr Bediako said the midnight of 26th September, 2010 is the reference point for the nationwide exercise and that all enumeration should relate to this reference point.
Vehicles, which will be travelling on census night, will be enumerated together with their occupants before they set off and passengers will be issued with certificates of enumeration to prevent double inventory.
Those who will sleep in hotels, rest and guest houses would be counted in the evening of the census night to ensure that they really spent the night there.
The Director of Information Services Department, Mr Nii Agyiri Barnnor, on his part, charged Information Officers to work hard in their public education campaign to sensitize the public on the need to be counted.
Mr Barnnor said the census data is invaluable in planning for example and that education data obtained from the National Population Census are of considerable importance to government's effort to improve access to quality education.