The Role of the Spatial Development Gap in the Distribution of Investment Allocations to the Education Sector in Babylon Governorate

Abstract

The research aims to study the role of the spatial development gap in allocating investments in the educational buildings services sector due to the importance of the spatial development gap, which shows the extent of the needs of each administrative unit in Babylon Governorate and its suitability to achieve spatial development for all development sectors, and here comes the role of the development gap in determining investments in school buildings projects according to the need that is determined according to planning criteria. It addressed the school buildings (kindergarten, primary, secondary, and vocational) for each administrative unit in the governorate and the actual need for 2023. The research problem is a gap in educational services (buildings) at the administrative unit level in the Babylon Governorate. It hypothesizes that considering the spatial development gap in the distribution of financial allocations for educational services will lead to achieving equity in spatial distribution. It adopted the descriptive-analytical approach to study the reality of development and the inductive approach to analyze the data to achieve a balanced distribution of regional development program allocations. To determine the level of development, its priorities, and the size of financial allocations in the buildings sector for educational services, the weighted proportional distribution method (WPDM), one of the basic methods of multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDM), was used. It takes into account the population and development gap, according to specific weights according to the relative importance of development goals to achieve spatial justice and regional development. The research concluded that there is a development gap in educational building services between administrative units, despite the inclusion of projects under construction as a fixed balance for school buildings, which necessitated the redistribution of investment allocations for the regional development Program for educational services according to the method used.