Universities and other educational institutions in South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan are increasing their investments in virtual reality, despite the skepticism surrounding the mass adoption of Metaverse technologies in education.
Schools and institutions of higher education in Asian countries continue to actively implement Metaverse technologies in their educational processes. Universities in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are increasing investments in virtual reality. This is reported by the local media.
Virtual reality apps are used by teachers, primarily to develop innovative methods of transferring knowledge and skills. According to Moo Hwan Kim, President of Pohang University of Science and Technology in South Korea (POSTECH), Metaverse technologies have high potential in the long term to completely replace physical classes in fields that require learning in dangerous environments. The university aims to become a “metaversity,” bringing more and more courses into virtual space.
POSTECH allocated $300,000 a year in funding to purchase VR equipment and create educational programs in the virtual space, and spent $500,000 to create classrooms that will be connected to the Metaverse.
Last year, the Ministry of Science, ICT, and Future Planning of South Korea announced its intention to develop the Metaverse ecosystem, allocating 2,237 billion Korean won (~$1.8 billion). In particular, the money was spent on training young specialists and creating the “Metaverse Academy.”
Japan is also keeping up in this area. According to the country’s Ministry of Education, over 7,000 high school students who attend online classes used VR headsets to complete a course in 2022. The Metaverse education space helped motivate Japanese students to return to school in a new format. In addition, Japanese blockchain experts began training in virtual space last year. In total, more than 6,000 students completed the Metaverse training program in a year.
Recall that the Japanese government shows high interest in Metaverse technologies and actively invests in the sector’s development.
In Taiwan, virtual reality began to be used to work with children suffering from mental retardation. For example, the Syinlu Social Welfare Foundation uses Metaverse technologies to draw attention to the issues faced by people with autism. Lydia Liu, a representative of the organization, notes that virtual reality allows people to better understand the feelings of discomfort that people with autism face. In the future, the foundation plans to use VR equipment to teach children with autism and other mental disabilities.
However, the widespread use of Metaverse technologies in various spheres of human activity still seems to be a prospect of the relatively distant future. Large tech companies, such as Meta, invest a lot of resources in the development of the Metaverse and its mass promotion, but there’s an opinion that until this technology becomes more accessible and convenient for ordinary users, it won’t be widely popular.
You can read about Metaverse technologies in the Academy rubric on the CoinsPaid Media website.
