April 16, 2025
TOKYO – A Japanese high school began offering a metaverse programme in 2024, allowing students to attend classes by donning a virtual reality (VR) headset.
Yushi International High School, in south-west Japan’s Kumamoto prefecture, is pushing the boundaries of education in its three-year high school diploma programme, where students first get to know one another by their avatars and nicknames.
This is a unique example of a digital classroom in Japan, with Yushi International benefiting from different Education Ministry regulations for distance-learning schools and international schools.
But more generally, the national government has set its sights on the use of digital textbooks being the norm from the academic year starting April 2030, by giving classrooms the option to go fully online.
This major digital push is not without controversy.
Advocates argue that online instruction is more customisable to each student’s needs and better suited for collaborative learning. And as randoseru (Japanese school backpacks) get heavier – a survey has shown that their average weight was 4.28kg – digital textbooks can literally lift the weight off children’s shoulders.
Detractors, however, believe that the quality of education as a whole will decline as students may get distracted in classrooms and use their devices for other purposes.
From 2030, local education boards will be able to choose from three formats: digital instruction only, physical textbooks only, or a hybrid combination of both.
Digital textbooks have been allowed in classrooms since 2019, but only as “alternative teaching materials” to complement physical textbooks. They are not officially recognised and thus are largely unscreened by the government.
Adoption has been tepid, with just 23 per cent of elementary and junior high teachers actively using online tools in 2024, a government survey found. The implementation rate in high schools, meanwhile, stood at 11.7 per cent.
The government’s embrace of digital classrooms marks a strong statement of intent as the world debates the effectiveness of online learning. It comes as Japan’s societal digital drive has been bumpy, as evident from issues such as its problematic rollout of electronic identity cards.
The Education Ministry, however, said in a February report that shifting towards online instruction was necessary to promote “proactive, interactive and in-depth learning”.
Moving forward on digital education aligned with a child’s cognitive development is increasingly urgent, given that information and communication technology is indispensable to Japan’s socioeconomic progress, Dr Kazuki Mitsui, a pedagogist at the University of Yamanashi’s Faculty of Education, told The Straits Times.
“It is important for children to learn how to extract and critically evaluate information from digital sources,” he said. “Raising children who can properly analyse digital information is aligned with the direction that the government is aiming for as a digital nation.”
Recognising digital textbooks as “official” is not just semantics – doing so will come at a major cost as Tokyo grapples with competing budgetary demands, from defence to social welfare.
By law, Japan supplies official textbooks free-of-charge throughout nine years of compulsory education in both public and private schools. This includes six years of elementary school for pupils aged seven to 12, and three years of junior high for students aged 13 to 15. Beyond textbooks, school infrastructure will have to be upgraded and devices issued.
The Education Ministry said in its report that it will likely restrict the use of digital textbooks for those in lower elementary levels, given concerns of their lower cognitive processing abilities.
But it also cited empirical studies showing that children who are accustomed to digital learning show “no noticeable difference” in memory retention, comprehension and academic ability tests as compared with their peers who use physical textbooks.
Dr Mitsui said the laissez-faire approach towards digital classrooms thus far is a major reason behind the low adoption of digital textbooks as complementary teaching aids.
Many teachers are untrained in drawing up lesson plans that effectively harness digital instruction, ill-equipped to cope with technical breakdowns during class, and helpless in reining in inattentive students who use their device for purposes unrelated to the class, the ministry report said. As a result, many teachers tend to fall back on the habit – and sense of security – of using physical textbooks.
An unnamed junior high school principal was even quoted by the conservative Yomiuri newspaper as saying disapprovingly: “Having students use digital textbooks is like having them take a cooking class without first teaching them the danger of using knives.”
Dr Mitsui pointed to the financial burden as another reason for the current low adoption rates, given that digital textbooks are not currently distributed for free, while there is plenty of scepticism over the medium’s effectiveness.
Domestic media across the political divide have been united in urging caution and criticising the Education Ministry’s plan as hasty. The liberal Tokyo Shimbun, in a March editorial, noted that Sweden has made a U-turn in abolishing digital textbooks to go fully analogue after noticing a decline in reading and writing skills.
This came two months after the Yomiuri said it was “difficult to understand” why the government was moving ahead despite “deep-seated concerns” in schools.
“It can be said that this would be a major change to the compulsory education system, which has maintained an environment in which students can uniformly receive a certain level of education anywhere in the country,” the newspaper said.
Allowing local education boards to decide on the format of education, it added, was effectively “an abdication of responsibility by the central government” and will inevitably foment an education divide.
But Dr Mitsui belongs to the school of thought that digital textbooks would instead be “the great leveller” in education, since learning can be optimised and customised to each and every individual child’s needs.
Font sizes can be enlarged to make text easier to read, while those with colour blindness will benefit from colour inversion, he said by way of example.
“Among those who are struggling with learning difficulties, the content can be made more easily understandable through the use of animation or moving pictures, or through the use of sound,” he said. “This makes the content easier to comprehend than just text, photographs and diagrams.”
Dr Mitsui said physical textbooks should still be made available to students who prefer the use of paper, and hybrid education would give both teachers and children more flexibility. Concerns over how digital devices can hurt eyesight, he added, are manageable with guardrails such as taking appropriate breaks.
Ultimately, learning must be seen as engaging for students as Japan struggles to put a lid on record truancy rates across all levels of education.
A record 415,252 students across elementary, junior high and high school levels were considered “truant students” in the academic year ending March 2024. This is defined as children who miss school for more than 30 days in an academic year for reasons other than illness or financial constraints, such as bullying, social reclusion, or a “general lack of motivation”.
This worsening trend prompted Yushi International High School to conceive a fully-metaverse course, vice-principal Terunori Sakuraba told a media briefing in February. The school supplies students with a VR headset for free.
While the metaverse programme’s enrolment figures are not public, he estimated that seven in 10 of the students had been truant students before.
Mr Sakuraba said that a virtual space allows students to overcome their personal fears and build confidence, making it easier for those who find it difficult to attend conventional schools. The curriculum also includes specialised digital courses, such as programming and VR classes.
Rather than being an excuse to avoid society, the metaverse plays to their interests and offers specialised education, while providing a safe space to build up their communication skills, he said.
“Going beyond the binary debate over physical or digital textbooks, I think it is necessary to look at different forms of education catering to different needs, to ensure that learning can be accessible to all,” Mr Sakuraba said.
Students told ST, via their avatars, that school has many similarities to a traditional environment. There is, for example, morning assembly, group project work and home-room activities like radio callisthenics.
A second-year student who introduced himself by his moniker Toraneko said he had transferred from a typical high school.
“I was not able to make any friends and I felt very out of place, like I was being judged from first impressions,” the 17-year-old said. “But here, I can get together with my classmates anytime and anywhere after school in the metaverse. We’ve even met up in real life.”
He added: “Speaking from experience, when I was feeling down or even just a bit tired, it was mentally draining to walk or cycle to school. But now going to school involves just putting on a VR headset, which does not take much energy and keeps my motivation up.”
- Walter Sim is Japan correspondent at The Straits Times. Based in Tokyo, he writes about political, economic and socio-cultural issues.