The form of education encompasses a plethora of significant changes toward innovation, discovery, and progress, and this form will always need to evolve and adapt to the challenges faced, encountered, and experienced by trailblazers. Flexible learning approaches have grown in popularity in the Philippines in recent years, particularly in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Flexible learning refers to any educational system that gives pupils more control over their study time, place, direction, or pace (Cassidy et al., 2016; Davies et al., 2020). Students have more say over when, where, and how they learn. Flexible learning is a combination of digital and non-digital technologies (Santiago et al., 2021) that aims to make education accessible and inclusive. Studies have found that flexible learning improves learning outcomes, increases student engagement, and enhances student satisfaction (Alraimi et al., 2015; Bautista & Valtoribio, 2024; Kuo et al., 2014; Zawacki-Richter et al., 2019).
In 2020, the Philippine Commission on Higher Education (CHED) issued guidelines requiring higher education institutions to employ flexible learning modes in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, the Department of Education (DepEd) released a Basic Education Learning Continuity Plan that includes various flexible learning modes. The pandemic brought several challenges (Agayon et al., 2022; Caasi & Pentang, 2022; Gocotano et al., 2021) but also created opportunities for implementing flexible learning methodologies in the Philippines, including online (Giray et al., 2022; Lopena et al., 2021), modular (Agayon et al., 2022; Bacomo et al., 2022; Dangle & Sumaoang, 2020; Hamora et al., 2022; Roque, 2022; Tanucan et al., 2023), blended (Alvarez, 2020; Tupas & Linas-Laguda, 2020; Villanueva et al., 2022), and distance (Dimitropoulos et al., 2022; Joaquin et al., 2020; Roque, 2022) learning.
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