It all started with the introduction of GIS in Kashmir University, in the year 2005, that a new subject GIS (Geographical Information System) or Geoinformatics or geomatics got popularized here. It always seemed to be interesting and it was fun learning the subject being new and interdisciplinary. Although not being taught at college level and below, yet it has enormous potential as a spatial science based research and applications.
GIS and Education
GIS offers a potential decision-making tool in education sector across its three sectors i.e administration, policy and instruction. GIS offers them a way to visualize and manage all aspects including monitoring campus safety, mapping buildings, utilities and other infrastructure,recruitment efforts, routing school transportation, planning of closing schools and opening new ones, feasibility analysis. As a policymaker in education, this science provides them tools that can present patterns in educational achievement and the spot for targeting of new programs. GIS tools at the hands of students can facilitate them in knowing content in various disciplines such as geography, arts, environmental sciences, chemistry, biology,tourism studies, social sciences etc. It also allows students to think critically, using real time data and connecting to their own community in informal, primary, secondary, and university settings, which is in demand by the visual learners nowadays. GIS as a tool provides students a holistic computer and management skills such as computer, personal and organizational capabilities. Students can gather information such as locations with GPS (Global Positioning System)and attribute information about animal/ tree species, archive buildings, water quantity/quality, environmental impact data, pollution data and other variables on a field visit or even on their own school area. Investigations in field sciences like agriculture can be a heavy task requiring critical thinking while studying relationships among various variables e.g., the relationship between altitude, latitude, climate and rice production so that, with prior knowledge on the requirements of cotton farming, it helps in decision making to find a suitable rice growing area. Applications of GIS helps students in their investigations, recommendations as well as in improving the living standard of people and the health. Their results after investigations may be presented using GIS platform and multimedia. GIS provides platform tools for studying different issues and problems on a daily basis e.g., when pathologist studying the spread of diseases, scientists studying climate change spatial analysis is a necessity. As the planet earth is transforming constantly over the time as those caused by earthquakes, volcanoes, flashing rivers,deforestation, desertification, urbanization and other human forces there is a need to research and understand the backend forces, their triggers, and remedies and act on the required strategies and policy modalities. This throws the necessity of spatial planning. Thus researchers, thinkers and students use GIS to understand changing phenomena to learn thinking scientifically and analytically and make them become decision-makers. Thus, GIS is making a difference in the present education sector.
GIS and School Mapping
School mapping involves physical location analysis (coordinates: Latitude and longitude) of schools which requires knowledge of the settlements and population of that area. Based on the location and attributes of roads, houses, and other infrastructures as data layers or simply layers, accessibility analysis is made, which along with spatial analysis, helps in easy decision making. School mapping is a term used in educational planning and management, which covers a wide range of educational planning and management concerns related to resource allocation, efficient delivery of services and improvement in efficient learning. Mapping is a tool commonly used to reveal the relationships between the distribution of schools and the distribution of school age population to be served by them in a given area. GIS database provides a comprehensive framework and organization of spatial as well as non-spatial data, which has become a focused tool to help planning and decision making. Mapping of schools along with the information on administrative boundary and the biophysical layers such as major road network and major settlements provides the ground reality in terms of geographic coverage. GIS is based on the philosophy that location is important because variables and their relationships can vary by place and the space between them. The advancement in geographical information systems (GIS) has contributed immenselyto a number of studies dealing with measures of spatial access to educational facilities. Many studies have demonstrated mapping the distribution of facilities and analyzing their distribution to show whether they are clustered, dispersed or randomly distributed as well as to make out the facilities serving the people of that particular area. In many developing nations, GIS and school mapping technique are commonly used to create the important conditions to accomplish the universal primary and secondary education as well accessing educational facilities to socially disadvantaged people and far flung areas. GIS provides with a map of specific region/ area or location or a locality with focus on the schools and all related information to assist the decision-makers in either expanding current school or suggesting sites for new schools.
What is Web Based School GIS
Is an initiative of the Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Human Resources Department, Government of India for seamless visualization of school locations across India. Through this application, geographic location of schools collected by the various school education departments of the states are clubbed and mapped on the GIS Platform constructed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC). Simultaneously, in this application, base map services like road maps and high resolution satellite images, Digital Elevation Models (DEM) are available for better understanding of the topography of the location. This web based application comprises of administrative boundaries up to mohalla/ village level and location information up to habitation level along with basic GIS functionalities and measurement tools, which will help to improve the quality of planning and better utilization of resources available under various school education schemes.
Author Pass out of GIS from Kashmir University
husbandrs@gmail.com