THE USE OF GEOGRAPHICAL APPLICATIONS FOR MICRO-PLANNING SCHOOL LOCATIONS: THE @SCHOOL APP FOR PRESCHOOLS IN GHENT, BELGIUM

Parallel with the increased use of internet technology, more and more data is becoming freely accessible. However, most of this data is only available in its raw form and thus not legible for non-professionals. Especially for primary needs such as health care or education, the availability of relevant information for inhabitants is crucial in improving their quality of life.
Because education is one of the focal points in regional as well as in local policy, a coherent dataset containing detailed information about school locations and characteristics was compiled on the regional level Flanders. However, this data is centrally owned and not made accessible for the public by a user-friendly tool. Therefore, a geographical application was developed, aimed at improving inhabitants’ access to information concerning preschool locations in Ghent. The combination of two open source programs (Google Docs and ESRI ArcGIS Online) makes it possible to centrally update the tool and make it available for all internet users in real-time.

In the first phase, local authorities as well as civilians are able to request all relevant information (i.e. school name, school address, capacity, Google street view) about the selected preschool by implementing this user-friendly and open source tool. Furthermore, the tool can be used to determine which preschool is closest to a specific address. In the next phase, the dataset used in the application will be extended to contain information concerning all primary schools of the Flemish community.

Today, the application is used by different local authorities as system for policy support and is available to inhabitants in Ghent in the process of enrolment (‘Central Application Register’ or CAR). The convenient and intuitive interface makes the tool inclusive for poorly-educated parents or internet illiterates.