Clustering of provinces according to life and education indexes in terms of opportunity equality in education

Equal opportunity in education is one of the most important points in the education process. Democratic states are responsible for providing equal educational opportunities to every individual entering the education process. This equality should be achieved between regions or provinces. The aim of this scientific study is to cluster the provinces in the provinces of the Republic of Turkey with turkstat 2019 life index data and MEB 2019 education indicators. The data for the clustering study were taken from the data published by MEB (2019) and TURKSTAT (2019) classified by provinces. Provinces are clustered with the complate linkage method, the within groups linkage method, and the ward method from the progressive cluster analysis methods. Variables that contributed to the formation of these clusters were examined by k-means method from non-progressive clustering analyses. As a result of the study, we declare that it cannot meet educational indicators and basic needs such as the number of branches, classrooms, teachers and students per school in the primary and secondary levels.