The 4th Sub-regional Course in Statistics was conducted from 27 October - 14 November 2008 in Nadi, Fiji under the outreach training programme of SIAP for the Pacific Island Developing Countries. The training was conducted in collaboration with the Secretariat for Pacific Community (SPC) and the Government of Fiji. The course was conducted at the Sky lodge Hotel in Nadi. Resource persons from SPC conducted the training while Fiji provided lodging and administrative facilities for training. The main objective of the course was to develop basic skills on Sample survey planning, Social statistics and Data utilization and aims to strengthen capability of the NSOs in the collection, compilation, analysis and interpretation of official statistics of the selected 5 countries in the region.
Two participants each from Samoa and Tonga joined the training while one each from Cooks Island and Tuvalu particpated making a total of 6. Officials were rather a mix of junior and senior levels those who are responsible for compilation of statistics in their respective NSOs.
The course focused on the three modules namely, Sample survey planning, Social statistics and Data utilization. Various topics including sample selection, field logistics, budgeting, scheduling included Sample survey module. Social statistics module covered the topics such as censuses, surveys and registration systems describing concepts and measures involved in the processes. Module on Data utilization included topics on population policy and interpretation of data and indicators. The training was conducted for three weeks involving 15 working days by the three resource persons. Participants evaluated the content of the course to be very useful (80%) and useful (20%). Each module was considered to be very relevant by all participants. The views on the materials provided, presentations delivered, exercises conducted and discussions held were generally very favourable. SPC too expressed their happiness of the outcome and showed keen interest to collaborate with SIAP in conducting further country courses. Including more topics such as Economic statistics have been recommended for future courses since the basic structure was maintained during the four courses conducted so far.