A GIS Approach to Evaluation of Accessibility to Private Primary Schools in Ilorin West Local Government Area, Kwara State, Nigeria

Abstract

The ultimate goal of most educational facilities is the ease of accessibility to users and consumers alike. Location of Primary schools should be based on factors such as proximity, population as well as economy efficiency for sustainable development. The study uses geographic information system (GIS) techniques to show spatial distribution of private primary schools and accessibility level to private primary education. The data used for this study were acquired from primary and secondary sources. The primary data were acquired through field survey using questionnaire to obtained student settlements data and a handheld Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver to capture the coordinates of primary schools. The secondary data used for this study include a high resolution image, administrative map and school data. The data analysis was carried out using nearest neighbor and network analysis. School location, number of Private primary schools and the total area in kilometer were used to determine the pattern of distribution of Private primary schools in the study area. Settlements, road network, schools location, number of primary schools and school enrolments were used to generate accessibility to school. A set of origin-destination (OD) matrix was performed on the network dataset to evaluate the travel distance to school by students. The result of the spatial pattern of distribution carried out using the Manhattan method of Nearest Neighbor analysis in Ilorin West Local Government shows a random pattern of distribution with NNR of 1.01 and Z-Score of 0.36 and the network analysis shows 62.7% travelling distance below 2km and 37.3% travelling below 2km to schools.