Assessment of the spatial accessibility of secondary schools in Sironko District using the three step floating catchment area method.

Abstract

The main objective of the research study is to assess the spatial accessibility of secondary schools by students in Sironko District. The district has registered one of the worst performances in the last five years in both UCE and UACE examinations. This is attributed to few schools in the district that are poorly distributed and therefore students either walk long distances to access them or drop out. There is therefore need for reliable data on spatial accessibility to schools that will guide policy makers in the education sector to make well informed decisions. With this kind of data, they will know how many schools are needed and where they should be set up. This research study employed the Three Step Floating Catchment Area method to assess the distribution of the schools, network analysis to determine the optimal routes to the schools and multi-criteria decision analysis to determine the suitable areas for establishment of new schools. From the study, there were only 15 optimal routes to schools in the district and these were within only 8 sub counties indicating that most students walk long distances to schools, only 19% of the sub-counties had a high spatial accessibility index indicating the poor distribution of secondary schools in the district, 10% of the district is highly suitable for establishment of new schools while the rest is covered with steep slopes and poor road network. The Three Step Floating Catchment Area method that was used considers the population demand, school capacities and travel distances.it overcomes the overestimation of demand problem that is common with other methods. The method provided reliable results that can be used by the education policy makers to make reasonable decisions such as setting up new schools in relation to the population demand.