Predicting the number of new students in the first intermediate grade in Holy Karbala for the years (2025-2029)

Abstract

Abstract:Iraq is considered one of the first countries that approved the compulsory education law and encouraged education. Therefore, it is essential to give this important aspect full attention and constantly strive to develop it and ensure the provision of everything necessary for it to remain thriving and effective, as education is one of the fundamentals for building the individual and society. Since the Holy Karbala Governorate is one of the governorates witnessing rapid urban expansion and population growth, which reflects on the number of students in its schools, it has become imperative for us to face these influencing factors by developing annual plans to address potential problems such as the shortage of schools, educational and teaching staff, and study essentials like books, desks, and others. This can only be achieved by knowing the expected number of students to be admitted annually to schools. In this study, we were able to determine the expected number of students to be enrolled in the first intermediate grade for the next five years, based on the number of students registered for the previous ten years, which were obtained from the Educational Planning Department in the General Directorate of Education of Holy Karbala, and by using the Box-Jenkins methodology (BOX-JENKINS) and arriving at the best estimation model from the Autoregressive Moving Average (ARMA( and Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average(ARIMA) models, which provides a scientific basis for developing educational plans that align with the values reached by the study.