A Geospatial Approach to Socio Economic Factors Influencing Accessibility to Secondary Educational Institution in Ogun State, Nigeria

The study examined the pattern of secondary school in both urban and rural areas in Ogun State, Nigeria, effects of physical facilities in students’ enrolment and how parents’ educational qualification affects students’ enrolment. Primary data was collected through a questionnaire survey, field observation, and coordinates for schools and settlements location were also collected using hand held global positioning system (GPS) receiver. Secondary data include Yewa south local government administrative map, name and addresses of schools and statistics of both students and schools facilities in the study area. The spatial analysis was carried out using nearest neighbor analysis. School location, number of secondary schools and the total area in each ward were used to ascertain the pattern of distribution of secondary schools in both urban and rural areas in the study area. The results showed a clustered pattern in urban area while a dispersed pattern was obtained in rural area.

Descriptive Statistical analysis was also used for both physical facilities of the school and parents’ educational qualification to determine the enrolment pattern. Total enrolment, Number of classroom, and Classroom capacity (1 Teacher: 30 Students UNESCO standard 2002) were used to generate both school excess and number of classroom needed. The results indicated that secondary schools in urban area (Owode) have the highest number (110) of classroom needed for effective teaching while Ilaro ward have (119) of the number of classrooms needed. Most of the secondary schools classes were overcrowded because the number of students in the class is not commensurate with the number of classes available as a result of high shortage of classrooms needed in all the secondary school in the study area. In terms of educational qualification of parent, majority of the father’s (190) have secondary school certificate while mother’s (140) have national certificate in education. Those inferences made from the study indicates that majority of children who were out of school are from parents with secondary school certificate or national certificate in education and other who did not have any formal education.