Working Party on the Application of New Technology to Population Data
Fourth meeting
6-9 July 1999
Manila

The map that we are using is in the form of the drafting film format. The map is available only in Bangkok, municipal area and some big villages in sanitary district and non municipal area. The map is update periodically. For sanitary district and non municipal area, updating the number of houses of each village can obtain from the village survey taken every year. The village boundary and house location are still rely on the head of the village.

For this census in Bangkok and municipal area, the temporary employers are hired to update the map, the change of land mark, new houses and buildings. For sanitary district and non municipal area, provincial officers will update the map and group the ED. There will be 350-450 houses in one enumeration district in both municipal and non municipal area for this census.

This year NSO have received the budget to hire temporary employer to produce sanitary district map. Since all sanitary district in Thailand will become municipal area by this year. The project will be completed in the year of 2000, too late to be use for this census.

The Royal Thai Survey Department under the office of Supreme Commander of the Armed Force has authority to create digital map, but only few provinces are completed. NSO asked for copies, now we have the copy of three provinces.

Department of Town and Country and the Department Development Quality have develop their digital map for their purposes, which we also ask for copies. We try to match these maps in order to develop our own map.

With the very limited budget, NSO put more emphasis in solving the problem of the main frame computer for the year of 2000, the Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) for the census and update the provincial office microcomputers which is more urgent.

NSO plan to use only one form of  the questionnaire. The size of the questionnaire form is equivalent to the size of A3 paper. After fold in half the questionnaire will look like A4 size, This questionnaire will contain the main characteristics (short form) and the more detail characteristics of population question together with the housing characteristics (long form). This questionnaire form is decided to be captured by the Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR).

The previous plan, NSO plan to decentralized processing the census data. The completed questionnaire forms will be manual edited, coded at the provinces after that the coded questionnaire forms will be sent to the center to be data captured. There will be about 15 Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) station in all regions. After many tests, the smaller size ICR can not handle the large amount of questionnaire form. With the very limited budget, It is more benefit to have only one set of a very advance system with a very good software station in Bangkok. The final plan is, the questionnaire forms are still manual edited and coded at the provinces. The coded questionnaires will send to Bangkok to be data captured by the ICR, and process the result by using the main frame computer.

The sample census enumeration technique similar to that which was used for the 1970, 1980 and 1990 censuses will be adapted. For the last three censuses in Bangkok Metropolis, sanitary district non-municipal areas all persons and household were listed and simultaneously enumerated with the long form questionnaire. By the year of 2000 all sanitary district will become municipal area, then for this census the 20 percent sample will be applied to all area.