Accurate statistics vital to development planning — Sultan Nazrin
SUNGKAI: The socio- economic achievements of a country can be evaluated and monitored through statistics which can also be a reference to guide government formulate development plans, says the Sultan of Perak, Sultan Nazrin Shah.
He said inaccurate interpretation could invite wrong planning or conclusion resulting in inaccurate or unwise actions and finally failure to meet the targeted objectives.
In this regard, he said there were three factors governing statistics, one of which was that statistics should be gathered comprehensively so that it could function as an instrument to help ensure precise planning and avoid creating problems for implementers.
“Secondly, statistics are tabled consistently after they have been verified while thirdly, statistics should be interpreted objectively without any selective or prejudiced elements,” said the Sultan when opening the Malaysian Statistical Training Institute ( ILSM) here yesterday.
The RM54 million institute which began operations in 2012, is poised to become a hub for international standard statistics scientists to produce competent, innovative and highly skilled human capital.
A total of 615 programmes have been offered at the institute owned by the Statistics Department involving four centres namely School of Economics; School of Methodology, Research and Quality; School of Social and Demographic Studies as well as the School of ICT and Geospatial.
Apart from that, Sultan Nazrin said the country was facing the Fourth Industrial Revolution which demanded the community to have relevant, accurate and latest information as well as Big Data, which has been identified as a potential source to enhance the capability of making decision based on facts.
“This situation not only requires the process of modern and comprehensive data collection, in fact it also demands prompt and widespread dissemination to assist in precise decisionmaking,” he said. — Bernama