Assessment of School Infrastructure at Primary and Upper Primary Level: A Geospatial Analysis

Abstract

With the introduction of powerful and high-speed personal computers, proficient techniques for infrastructure development and management have advanced, of which Geoinformatics technology is of great significance. An attempt has been made for broad mapping and analysis of existing infrastructures in the context of planning scheme in Paschim Medinipur district, and to delineate the development zones of educational infrastructure facilities. The thematic layers considered in this study are infrastructure accessibility, type and condition of classroom and number of classroom allocated for the educational system at primary and upper primary level. Moran’s I statistics was used to estimate the spatial distribution of elementary infrastructure across the district. All these themes and their individual features were then assigned weights according to their relative importance in educational development and corresponding normalized weights were obtained based on the Saaty’s analytical hierarchy process. The thematic layers were finally integrated in GIS software based on multi-criteria approach to yield educational development infrastructure index. Moran’s I statistics shows girl’s toilet, electric and boundary wall facility within the district are clustered in pattern at primary level. At the upper primary level, only electric and computer facilities shows the clustered distribution across the district. However, four different zones have been delineated, namely “very good”, “good”, “moderate” and “poor”. The block covered by very good elementary educational infrastructure facility is Daspur-I and Dantan-II at primary level and Keshiary block at upper primary level in Paschim Medinipur district. Finally, it is concluded that the Geoinformatics technology is very efficient and useful for the identification of infrastructure development.