Blended Classroom Teaching Equalizes Educational Inequality

This study explores how blended classroom teaching (the integration of online courses with face-to-face instructions) equalizes educational outcomes across regions. We point out that besides the medium function, ICT can also transmit educational resources across regions, and the resource transmission function facilitates the equalization of educational inequality across regions. Specifically, the model illustrates that blended classroom teaching transmits educational resources and increases the teaching resources in the underdeveloped regions. Thus, the number of high school graduates increases with more human capital from teaching services and less from student endowment; the investigation of 24million high school students in 31 regions in China from 2013 to 2019 reveal substantial differences in the graduation rates between developed regions and underdeveloped regions, but the gap narrows significantly along with the fast increase of network multimedia classrooms; and the regression analyses find the number of high school graduates is significantly positively associated with network multimedia classrooms in underdeveloped regions, and with teachers in senior ranks in developed regions. All the findings are consistent with the model predictions.