Introduction

Chosen topic

Theme 2: Geography of Accessibility with GIS-based Network Analysis

Sub-theme 1: Impact of closures or mergers of education institutions on equity of access.

1. Introduction & Project Motivation

Github link: https://github.com/jkpok/GISProject.git

QGIS project link: SMT_Group5 (Final).zip

1.1 General Information on the Closure and Merger of Primary School and Junior College (JC)

Singapore is widely known for its people having the 2nd highest IQ population in the world (Worlddata.info, n.d.). In recent years, due to an increase in the standard of living and quality of life in Singapore, and with the pressure of inflation that has affected people all around the world, the cost of living has been increasing significantly and this has caused many Singaporeans to avoid having offspring which caused Singapore’s population to decline.

Therefore, with a decline in birth rate and a decrease in the population size for younger generations between the age of 0 to 6, the Ministry of Education of Singapore released a statement in 2018 that there will be 11 primary schools and 6 JC that will be closed between 2018 to 2025 as per our data preparation link (Ministry of Education Singapore, 2022). This is to ensure that the resources that the Ministry of Education have deployed will not be under-utilized while all students in primary schools will still have equal and high-quality access to education.

List of Primary School Closures we are studying

Balestier Hill Primary School
Coral Primary School
Da Qiao Primary School
East Coast Primary School
East View Primary School
Eunos Primary School
Guangyang Primary School
Loyang Primary School
MacPherson Primary School
Pioneer Primary School
Stamford Primary School

List of Junior College Closures we are studying

Innova Junior College
Jurong Junior College
National Junior College
Serangoon Junior College
Tampines Junior College
Temasek Junior College

1.2 Project Motivation

Singapore has long been regarded as a success story about a small island without natural resources turned world-class metropolis in one generation. However despite the boon we experienced, or perhaps because of it, the birthrate has been declining to the extent where schools have to be closed. Our team is incredibly concerned about the consequences of Singapore’s low birthrate which thus, led us to assess the impact of closures or mergers of education institutions on equity of access.

The chart below shows us that the number of primary schools has more than halved since 1990, which is incredibly concerning news.

1.3 Project Objective

To determine and measure the impact of closures/merges of primary schools and JC in Singapore from 2018 to 2025 towards Primary School and JC students and the equity of access to the remaining Primary Schools and JC in Singapore.

1.4 Project Data

File name	Description	Source
Master Plan 2019 Subzone Boundary (No Sea)	Polygon layer of Singapore categorised by various sub-zones.	https://data.gov.sg/dataset/master-plan-2019-subzone-boundary-no-sea
Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei	Vector layers from Open Street map, which were used to identify the roads and traffic of Singapore	https://download.geofabrik.de/asia/malaysia-singapore-brunei.html
Education	A csv file containing the names of schools in Singapore and their locations	https://elearn.smu.edu.sg/d2l/le/content/328735/viewContent/2062006/View
Location of Primary School as at 2017	A csv file containing the names of primary schools in Singapore and their locations	https://data.world/hxchua/primary-schools-in-singapore
Location of JC	A website to search for existing and closed JC	https://geo.sg/gmaps/singapore-schools/show_data?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search=innova&button=#
Primary Schools Closure and Mergers	An article from MOE containing the annex of Primary Schools that are affected by the closure or merger.	https://www.moe.gov.sg/-/media/files/news/press/2022/annex—names-of-schools-merging-between-2022-2025.ashx?la=en&hash=99BC8F6A971058F4AF09F1DEB1A16A1F0D9AB195
Geographic Distribution	Geographic Distribution of the Population Trends.	https://www.singstat.gov.sg/find-data/search-by-theme/population/geographic-distribution/latest-data

1.5 Scope of Work

Theme	Person in Charge
Selection of project focus and conducting literature review	Chevy, Swinnerton, Andrew
Preparing proposal and project website	Chevy, Swinnerton, Andrew
Data collection, extraction, integration, transformation and wrangling	Chevy, Swinnerton, Andrew
Designing and building GIS model and database	Chevy, Swinnerton, Andrew
Performing GIS analysis	Chevy, Swinnerton, Andrew
Preparing poster and project webpage.	Chevy, Swinnerton, Andrew

Others

Theme	Person in Charge
School closure for Primary School	Chevy, Swinnerton
School closure for Junior College	Chevy, Andrew
Road network	Chevy, Swinnerton
QGIS, Report clean up	Chevy, Swinnerton, Andrew
Poster clean up	Chevy, Swinnerton, Andrew
Metadata	Chevy, Swinnerton, Andrew