Study on the accuracy of school location information in South Africa

Lauren Hankel,Sives Govender,Merryl Ford,Ronel Smith,Anita Van Deventer,Melissa Burgess,Kobus Roux

doi:10.4314/sajg.v6i2.1

Abstract

Accurate location information is required for proper planning and informed decision making in a variety of sectors. In the basic education sector, accurate school location information is typically required for road, electricity, internet connectivity and water infrastructure planning as well as planning for the delivery of textbooks and public transport (i.e. busses, taxis). The National Education Collaboration Trust (NECT) commissioned the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to conduct a study of existing school location information in five NECT education districts (Bohlabela, Bojanala, Mount Frere, Uthungulu and Waterberg). School location information in two existing databases, i.e. Education Management Information System (EMIS) and National Education Information Management System (NEIMS) were assessed. Due to the nature of school buildings (i.e. varying form of schools) it is challenging to automate the identification of schools from satellite imagery by using machine learning/image processing techniques. Manual Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques were applied to conduct the study. High resolution satellite imagery and Google StreetView were utilised to ascertain the locations of schools. This study indicated that there are discrepancies between the EMIS and NEIMS databases and that there is a significant amount of school location information that might not be useful for proper planning and informed decision making in certain sectors due to the degree of positional inaccuracy of the data. If the positional accuracy of the incorrect school location information improves, it will have a positive impact on the overall outcomes of planning and decision making.

Highlights

Accurate location information is required for proper planning and informed decision making in a variety of sectors, accurate school location information is required for planning and decision making in education
The National Education Collaboration Trust (NECT) is an organisation that is dedicated to strengthening collaboration between civil society and government in order to achieve the basic education goals that are listed in the 2030 National Development Plan (NDP) (Republic of South Africa, 2012) of South Africa (National Education Collaboration Trust, 2017)
An analysis was conducted to determine the positional accuracy of the coordinates in the Education Management Information Systems (EMIS) and National Education Information Management System (NEIMS) datasets compared to the new dataset

Summary

Introduction

Accurate location information is required for proper planning and informed decision making in a variety of sectors, accurate school location information is required for planning and decision making in education. The Department of Basic Education (DBE) is the custodian of information on all schools in South Africa. Education Management Information Systems (EMIS) is a function in DBE that is responsible to develop and maintain an integrated education information system for education management (Department of Basic Education, 2016). DBE and provincial EMIS units have a mandate to provide education information to the education system, and to support monitoring, planning and decision-making processes (Department of Basic Education, 2014). In order to provide infrastructure services to schools, accurate location information is critical. Phase one of SA-Connect aims to provide broadband access of 10 megabytes per second (Mbps) to 4444 schools in eight District Municipalities by the end of 2017. In 2016 NECT commissioned the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to conduct a study of existing school location information for connectivity planning in five education districts where NECT is active.

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion