Geographical nearest-neighbor networks of Philippine public schools

Abstract

We utilize the data from the Enhanced Basic Education Information System (eBEIS) Database of the Department of Education (DepEd) to provide a geographical picture of the Philippine public schools system. The structure of nearest neighbor geographical networks, particularly the distance between nearby schools, hint at two different mechanisms involved in the establishment of schools in the country. On one hand, we observe a passive mechanism that is driven by actual student demand, resulting in the spatial clustering of schools at urban centers. On the other hand, the government introduces efforts to also establish schools in far-flung areas, resulting in nearest-neighbor distributions that show comparable statistics with a null model of randomly-generated seed points in space. Interestingly, we find similar statistical features for different provinces and the capital region of the Philippines, suggesting that the proposed mechanisms are always present, albeit at varying degrees. To our knowledge, this is the first ever study of the kind in the Philippines; the implications may be useful for drafting policy measures to better handle the Philippine public school system.