Is blended learning the future of higher education?: Stakeholders’ Perspectives from Bangladesh

Abstract

Government higher education is extremely cheap in Bangladesh, in comparison to private education. To cover the cost of private higher education, graduate students of private universities who work and study at the same time, face an uphill struggle in finding the right balance. In dire circumstances, they are forced to make a critical life changing choice— either to completely become immersed in work, or leave and pursue fulltime higher studies. In such a situation, blended learning can apparently be the answer, as this will enable graduate students to work and study at the same time. However, as hardly any research has been carried out in this field in Bangladesh up until 2018, it seems too naive to jump to conclusions. This paper specifically looks at the implication of blended learning from the perspectives of stakeholders like students pursuing graduate studies, academics, employers, and housewives. Data was gathered from 10 private universities, six corporate sectors, and dropout housewives, and analysedby employing two theories (Social-constructivism and Dual coding) and multimodal model of blended learning (enriched virtual model and flipped classroom). Findings proved to be interesting. The implementation of online classes on the one hand may help learners to balance the work and study equilibrium, as well as decrease dropouts from higher education, on the other hand would be quite costly due to virtual infrastructural development and teacher training.