Spatio-temporal analysis of educational convenience in ethnic mountainous areas with road network constraints-A case study of Yunnan Province, China

Education is the foundation and strength of a nation, and educational equity is the basic right of every citizen. However, in China, there are vast differences in education levels between the eastern and western areas, urban and rural areas, and ethnic and non-ethnic areas. This is especially so in China's mountainous areas in the rural southwest. In this region, Yunnan Province is selected as study area. This study proposed an educational convenience index (ECI), and established an evaluation model for educational convenience in mountainous regions. In this model, we investigated the road networks that connect settlements to schools in ethnic mountainous areas, and considered the vulnerability, complexity and accessibility of the road networks from settlements to schools. In road vulnerability analysis, a new concept of “only link” is introduced. Based on this model, the ECI of each settlement in Yunnan Province in 2011 and 2015 was calculated. The improvement of ECI for each settlement in the 4-year period between 2011 and 2015 was analyzed. The findings show that: (1) Educational convenience of non-ethnic autonomous regions (65% settlements >=” good”) was far better than that of ethnic autonomous regions (53% settlements >= “good”). (2) The educational convenience level in both ethnic and non-ethnic autonomous regions have improved. The improvement was slightly lower in ethnic autonomous regions (5.44%) than in non-ethnic autonomous regions (6.23%). (3) The comparison of improvements in educational convenience between 2011 and 2015 showed that such improvements formed a significant “substantially improved - greatly improved - moderately improved” three-tier pattern and a “greatly improved - moderately improved” two-tier pattern.