System-Driven Blended Learning for Quality Education: A Collective Case Study of Universities and Vocational Colleges and Schools in China

In today’s education, blended learning (BL) has become integral to education transformation. This chapter continues to explore the drivers of BL for equitable access to quality education but using Chinese educational institutions as a collective case study. This aim was achieved by analyzing what drove the development of strategy, structure, and support for BL implementation across six educational institutions in China. These institutions include two universities, two vocational colleges, and two vocational schools. Their achievements in teaching and learning were also discussed to gauge the impact of their BL implementation. The results show that all the six institutions adopted an institution-wide, system-driven approach with clearly defined goals, coordinated approaches, and concerted support at different levels, despite the fact that their models and needs for BL are different. Their experiences and achievements in BL revealed the following key drivers for BL implementation in the Chinese education context: (1) the integration of BL implementation into their long-term goals for educational reform and the mobilization of the institution-wide involvement of the teachers and administrators at different levels, (2) conditioning the institution for the start of BL adoption at both the administrative and infrastructure levels, and (3) the provision of both technical and pedagogical support in a timely and ongoing manner at all levels. Among the six cases of BL implementation, the sustained improvement in learning and teaching quality of the three institutions from the poorer remote regions in China has particular implications for promoting accessible and equitable quality education and lifelong learning through BL.