Local and central officials from 18 provinces across the country are attending a training programme for enumerators for the Lao Social Indicator Survey II.
The training course is being held in Thalath district, Vientiane Province from Jun 5 through Jul 5 and is supported by the United Nation Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Head of the Lao Statistics Bureau Samaychanh Boupha and representative of the United Nations Population Fund Frederika Meijer were present at the opening ceremony of the training course.
The training course aims to enhance the knowledge and skills of enumerators and team supervisors in survey-related definitions, concepts, survey ethics and interviewing techniques, as well as to develop understanding of all Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) questionnaires, household questionnaires, questionnaires for women and men, questionnaires for children under five, children between 5-17 years, water quality tests and anaemia tests.
The training is also to develop the knowledge and skills of using Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) and/or tablets for data collection and understand the significance of different modules and indicators to be covered in the survey.
The Lao Social Indicator Survey � LSIS II is a nationwide, household based survey covering all 18 provinces to generate data at the provincial level disaggregated by age, residence, sex, wealth quantile and ethnic groups, according to UNICEF representative Hongwei Gao,.
The sample size is 23,400. LSIS II follows the new set of indicators and tools of MICS6 modules which includes SDGs indicators. The global/regional MICS team and USAID provide the technical assistance to carry out this survey, said Ms Hongwei.
Why is it important? Well, this second survey will give us up-to-date information needed for the selection of data on key social development indicators to monitor the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); LSIS II will provide baseline data for the 8th National Socio-Economic Development Plan (NSEDP) and the provincial social development indicators; finally, LSIS II will also provide data for graduation from LDC/Least Developed Country, continued Ms Hongwei.
Ms Hongwei highlighted that LSIS II is a little more complex than LSIS I, because there are some new modules like water quality testing and anaemia testing, as well as new sets of questions in other modules and questionnaires. Most importantly, the CAPI/tablets will be different from the ones used for LSIS I. It will require a lot of practice to understand and apply the diverse functions of this powerful device.
I would like to emphasise that this training of enumerators is a big milestone in the overall process of the Lao Social Indicator Survey. Because soon after this training, you will do the field data collection in your respective enumeration areas from early July to the end of October or early November, added Ms Hongwei.
Source: Lao News Agency
