5. Progressive Usage of Business and Spatial Intelligence for Decision Support in the Delivery of Educational Services in Developing Countries

Managers and administrators in public sector organisations have the responsibility to make various decisions concerning service delivery to the citizens of the country. The provision of education to the children of the country is one fundamental type of service. Decision makers often work within many constraints, some of which are budgetary, political, geographical, and lack of relevant and timely information to support decision making. A well-educated population is a necessity for the economic development and well-being of a population. The provision of effective educational services is therefore crucial for every economy. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a discussion of knowledge discovery technologies and systems that can be implemented to support the gathering, storage, and analysis of data for purposes of supporting decision-making activities in the public sector in general and the public education sector in particular. The technologies discussed are business intelligence (BI), geographical information systems (GIS), and free/libre/open source software. It is argued in this chapter that the combination of these technologies can and should provide operationally effective and cost-effective solutions to the problem of gathering, storage, and analysis of data to support decision makers’ information needs. A case study of an education department which makes use of BI and GIS technologies in their management activities is provided as an example of effective usage of BI and GIS technologies for decision support.