The Statistics Department will be mailing out notices this week to more than 4,000 households that have been chosen to participate in Bermuda's first Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey, the Department of Communications and Information announced on Wednesday.

The notice will inform householders that starting March 2003, trained interviewers will call on their homes to select one person to take part in the survey. "Householders are asked to make themselves available for this extensive exercise and keep their dogs under control," said the statement from the Department.

"This is an extensive survey and we want to notify the households that have been selected and give them sufficient time to prepare for the visit of the interviewers," said chief statistician Valerie Robinson-James. "We are confident that we can rely on their co-operation to accomplish the survey."

The survey will be launched during the month of March and will continue to the end of July. Bermuda is one of several countries participating in the survey along with Canada, Italy, Norway, South Korea, Switzerland and the United States.

The information collected will enable Government to determine what programmes must be put in place to ensure that the people of Bermuda possess the required literacy levels and life skills to perform well in the community and the workplace.

Mrs. Robinson-James finished: "We solicit the support of the community at large to make this initiative a success for the general well-being of the people of Bermuda."

One person from a randomly selected household is interviewed - which can be rescheduled. There are more than 100 trained people doing the survey.