The census by definition is for people WHO LIVE in a country where it’s conducted, but apparently that’s not the case in Australia where they even make it mandatory for non-citizens (tourists) when they are only visitors (who DO NOT live in Australia in the first place), the logic doesn’t make any sense. Like if, a tourist should not be forced to do it since they hold a foreign passport and have no residential address in Australia.
Here is a moment’s critical thought:
“Mr. Sandringham of Kensington believes this primary school in his area is not needed. He wants to buy the land that school uses and develop it into apartments”
“How many primary-school kids live in Kensington?”
“How should I know? Should we do a survey?”
What other means would you propose to figure out the answer to this question? And that’s just the first example to come to mind. Census data informs everything like this. Roads, hospitals, parks, public transport infrastructure, shopping centres, hell even businesses use population sample data to figure out where to put a branch based on whatever metrics they need.
Im struggling to believe anyone could think this is a good example of census data in use…
Quite obviously, a decision like that would be made with reference to the number of kids at the school?!
If the school really was poorly attended, the states education department would know whether it’s capacity can be absorbed by other schools, and would already be trying to close the school to minimise costs.
If a school was actually going to be closed and the land sold, town planners would conduct a thorough review and actually ask stakeholders, like local residents, parents, other schools, etcetera.
What they wouldn’t bother to do is look at census data. I can assure you that schools aren’t being built just because the census says there’s demand
It was an example. A simple data point anyone could understand. But as I haven’t convinced you yet, let’s take it further…
What of the three-year-old population in Kensington? They aren’t at the school yet but will want to be next year. Or the couples in their late 20’s who are married? Several of those will want to send kids in ~5 years. How will you learn how many of those are in the area?
Sure would be useful for those town planners to have some useful statistical demographics from the last five years to refer to for this review, wouldn’t it? What if they had multiple snapshots of Kensington every five years over the last 20 years or so? That data would be super useful for conducting a review. They should do a survey of the people in Kensington to get that data!
Oh man.
What if the school had some data like… Oh I don’t know… The number of enrolments of 4 year olds for the last n years. That would certainly be an interesting data point.
It just doesn’t make any sense to me at all to suggest that people are making these decisions with census data.
State education departments don’t have surplus funds. There are no schools sitting empty because someone is waiting for the census to tell them there are no students in the area. Likewise there are no schools being built because the census says there are some 3 year olds I’m the area.
Education departments allocate their scarce resources based on enrolments. That’s it.
Seriously, this is truly the dumbest example.
So an entire federal government department spends millions and millions of dollars to collect all this information for it to not be used?
You are incorrect. ABS data informs education departments routinely. Again, please do at least a minimal amount of searching before you plop onto the Internet and just confidently say random shit with authority.
https://www.abs.gov.au/methodologies/schools-methodology/2024
https://www2.education.vic.gov.au/pal/srp-core-student-learning-allocation/guidance/rural-school-size-adjustment-factor