KUALA LUMPUR – As of February 21, only about 10.45 million or 35% of 32.7 million Malaysians have completed the Population and Housing Census 2020, said Statistics Department (DoSM) chief statistician Datuk Seri Mohd Uzir Mahidin.
He said although the online e-Census is still open, there are many who have yet to submit their details.
“The census system this time is different from the previous system, which only took about four weeks to complete.
“We request cooperation from the public to participate in this exercise. Those who want to do it without the face-to-face meeting can do it via e-Census,” he said in a question-and-answer session during the department’s Meet the Customer Day programme held virtually today.
The census commenced on July 7 last year with the implementation of an online exercise via e-Census and computer-assisted telephone interview (Cati) method.
Uzir also said that DoSM has yet to implement the census on a large scale via face-to-face meetings due pandemic-related constraints.
“At the moment, our enumerators are being mobilised for a targeted face-to-face exercise according to comfort and propriety level in the local community.
“If people are not comfortable with the e-census system, our enumerators in the field will help them use the Cati system or we can manually provide questionnaires,” he said.
The census was implemented in two phases – phase one was originally scheduled from July 7 to September 30 last year, and phase two from October 7 to 24.
However, they were rescheduled, with the first phase (online) extended up to December 21 last year, and the second phase (face-to-face) having taken place between January 20 and February 6 this year. – Bernama, February 23, 2021
