One hundred and sixty participants from the Karen National Union, also referred to as the KNU, attended five days of enumerators and supervisors census training carried out by UNFPA and Myanmar's Ministry of Population, from 17 to 21 March (2014) held in Mon State exactly one week prior to Myanmar's first census in over thirty years.

The KNU participants, consisting of a mix of primary school teachers, university graduates and students, attended the week long training in Bilin Township in Mon State of south-east Myanmar. An additional 22 KNU participants attended the same census training in Hpa-an, the capital of Karen State. In total 380 KNU participated in the training sessions in various locations. The majority of people in Mon State are Burmese and a minority of Karen and Pa-Oo ethnic groups. Myanmar's country-wide census will take place from 30 March to 10 April 2014.

Phado Saw Tin Soe, KNU Associate Secretary of Thaton District, Mon State who attended the enumerator and supervisor training as part of the Bilin Census Supervisory Committee, said that "the census is important as we can get the accurate and crucial data from a region, a village, a town or a country through the census so that the government can move forward developing plans for the country." The KNU representatives received the same training as other enumerators and supervisors did across Myanmar. The training included theory as well as practical lessons needed to equip the census participants with skills to carry out the data collection.

UNFPA provided technical support for the development of the training curriculum and related instruction materials and provided funding for the three rounds of training sessions across the country involving master, district, enumerator and supervisor training. Technical assistance from Australia's Statistics Bureau and India's Census Bureau was also provided to improve the census training manuals and accompanying learning materials.

Ma Naw Kayk Dawhu, 35, KNU mother of 2 girls and trainee teacher said that "the census is very useful as it will help improve the future for all the ethnic people living in Myanmar." She went on to say that the "census training is crucial for the whole of the country."

The Karen National Union (KNU) is a political organization with an armed wing, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) that represents the Karen people or "Kawthoolei" in Karen language, a minority ethnic group in Myanmar which is primarily based in Hpa-an, the capital of Karen State. The KNU entered in early 2012 into a ceasefire agreement with the Myanmar government after more than sixty years of conflict. The KNU enumerators and supervisors took part in the last round of three specially devised instruction sessions for the census dubbed "training of trainers".

The first round of training nation-wide, which started in late February, included 464 master trainers, the second round involved 7,200 district trainers in mid-March. Approximately 120,000 enumerators and supervisors across Myanmar took part in the third and final part of the training sessions.