Abstract:

Research on student distribution is within the research scope of education geography and is also a new field of research of location theory of service industry. It has theoretical and practical significance for exploring the law of student source distribution and serving the development of schools through the method of geography. By taking a general senior high school in Nanjing urban area as an example and by using statistic method of survey and technology of accessibility evaluation, this paper reveals the law of student distribution and then defines real student distribution and theoretical student distribution. The results obtained are based on the contrast of survey data of actual travel time of students and calculated data of the theoretical travel time by accessibility evaluation. The condition of internal real student distribution is evaluated by density analysis compared with real student distribution, and then student compact distribution and student scattered distribution are divided. The range of real student distribution is evaluated by overlay analysis on actual and theoretical student distribution, and then areas with affluent students and areas with inadequate students are divided. On the basis of the boundaries for all theoretical student distributions, student distributions are divided into three cycles with different attraction powers, namely, high-attraction, medium-attraction and low-attraction and the characteristics of three cycles are analyzed. Strategies and suggestions applied to strengthen school management and recruitment are put forward based upon the analysis and evaluation such as determining the key areas of the work of school enrollment and taking differentiated strategies of student enrollment in different regions. This paper only provides a study case of student distribution of general senior high school in a city, and other schools can do similar studies according to their nature and their status of student distribution and can make scientific decision-making for school development. Location theory of education service industry is a new direction of research of education and research of geography and it will be conducive to spatial planning of educational resources and will enrich the contents of education geography and location theory.

Key words: accessibility, location theory of service industry, senior high school, student distribution