Popis: |
Geographic information systems (GIS) have started to be used in developing information to be used for national and regional development in many areas; however, the use of this system for educational planning has been under-researched. Adopting the case study design, this study evaluated the current locations of primary schools in Afyonkarahisar and offered alternative locations in order to improve access to primary education for the school-aged population using heuristic location-allocation modelling approaches. An intelligent areal interpolation approach was performed to generate the population surface. The demand surface was used as input to a location-allocation analysis, and alternative locations were suggested. With the current distribution of primary schools, the primary school-aged population would have to travel an average distance of 1466.81m to access primary education. The results show that alternative primary school locations decreased the average travel distance by 339.69m, improving overall accessibility to primary schools. The results suggest that geospatial methods can be used to provide documentary evidence to support education planners and policymakers. |