Spatial analysis to identify disparities in Philippine public school facilities

Abstract

This paper addresses the issues that affect school building conditions as a case study of the Philippines. Geographic information systems were utilized to investigate the allocation of public school resources and the extent of disparity in education facilities among 75 Philippine provinces. Four clusters of the provinces were identified by applying spatial statistics and regionalization techniques to the public school data. Overall, the building conditions are of high quality in the northern provinces. The greater region of the capital is overcrowded but well maintained. The eastern seaboard region and the southern provinces have poor conditions due to frequent natural calamities and the prolonged civil unrest, respectively. Since the spatial analysis result shows that the school building requirements are largely unmet, some recommendations are proposed so that they can be implemented by the government in order to improve the school facilities and mitigate the existing disparities among the four clusters of the Philippines.