How flexible is flexible learning, who is to decide and what are its implications?

In an earlier editorial comment (Naidu, 2017), I was reflecting on the growing popularity of the concepts of openness and flexibility, suggesting that they were rapidly becoming the norm, especially in higher education and in many parts of the world. And I credited distance education for articulating and putting these concepts into practice as in the case of the design and deployment of the learning and teaching transaction for learners separated in time and space from their teachers and the educational institution. I am writing this editorial from my new role as inaugural Pro Vice Chancellor, Flexible Learning and Director of the Centre for Flexible Learning at the University of the South Pacific (USP), where I am driving this agenda causing me to reflect on its operationalisation. Flexible learning is a state of being in which learning and teaching is increasingly freed from the limitations of the time, place and pace of study. But this kind of flexibility does not end there. For learners, flexibility in learning may include choices in relation to entry and exit points, selection of learning activities, assessment tasks and educational resources in return for different kinds of credit and costs. And for the teachers it can involve choices in relation to the allocation of their time and the mode and methods of communication with learners as well as the educational institution. As such flexible learning, in itself, is not a mode of study. It is a value principle, like diversity or equality are in education and society more broadly. Flexibility in learning and teaching is relevant in any mode of study including campus-based face-to-face education.