Using hierarchical P-median problem for public school allocation

Student's orientation from primary to the secondary schools is a vital process and need to be considered as yearly problem by The District Education Office of Ministry of Education Malaysia. The allocation of students to the right schools becomes complicated due to several constraints like capacity of seats in secondary schools, widespread demand areas as well as preferences by the parents. Considering all the constraints, this study proposes the application of location model to allocate students the right school. The allocation of student from primary to secondary school is based on total number of students, the availability of seats from primary and at the secondary schools, and distance from student's home to the nearest schools, both primary and secondary schools. The problem is modelled as hierarchical P-median problem as there are two hierarchical levels in this orientation. An alternative Genetic Algorithm (GA) based heuristic is applied to solve the problem and results are compared with Excel Solver.