The metaverse is no longer all about gaming or virtual real estate. It now is impacting our educational lifestyle as well. Meta recently launched a Meta for Education program, where it partnered with over a dozen US and UK universities to test VR in classrooms (Sawers, 2024). Arizona State University and Imperial College London are among the universities that are testing Meta’s Quest headsets to provide immersive education. In Europe, Meta even created virtual twin “metaversity” campuses (replicas of real campuses) at institutions like the University of Leeds to enable students to attend some classes in VR (Sawers, 2024). Imagine a history class where you transport yourself to ancient Rome, or an art class strolling through the Louvre virtually. Meta is placing big bets that this type of experience can make learning more engaging.
Who’s involved in this project? Primarily Meta and the partner universities, but also educators and students offering feedback on what is effective. The idea is to make it easier for teachers to find interactive content across subjects from science to languages and arts. It’s a huge gamble for Meta, especially as the company spent billions on VR with mixed results. This new educational program comes on the heels of Meta and other tech firms being questioned about kids and online safety as it pertains to them releasing these VR devices for use by teenagers (13+ years old), which has sparked some criticism (Querolo, 2024). But it is however a considerable move from just developing a flashy “virtual world” to now addressing real-world uses, like education.
Being a student myself, learning in the metaverse makes me a bit ambivalent. On one side, the idea of field trips to ancient sites or seeing inside human cells in VR could make class so much more engaging than old textbooks. It could also revolutionize remote learning. For example, if I am unable to be on campus, I could still have a virtual lab or studio with my classmates. On the other hand, keeping focus in a virtual environment can be an issue in itself, as younger kids are already prone to get completely sucked into online games, neglecting reality. There is then the question of whether younger students should be wearing headsets to school. To me, if approached thoughtfully, taking learning into the metaverse would actually enhance learning by making it more immersive and interactive. It is great to see tech firms broadening the metaverse beyond entertainment. That action shows the metaverse is not just a digital realm for games, but potentially a new medium for everyday activities like going to school. We’ll just have to wait and see if these virtual classrooms are a reality, but I hope that in a few years “attending class” might sometimes mean putting on a VR headset and dropping into a lesson you have to see to believe.
Sawers, P. (2024). Meta taps US, UK universities to test VR in education, creates digital twin “metaversities” in Europe. TechCrunch.
Querolo, N. (2024). Meta wants to bring students as young as 13 into the Metaverse. Bloomberg News.
OpenAI. (2025). Cover image for blog post on Back to School in the Metaverse [Digital illustration generated by ChatGPT]. OpenAI.
That is an compelling case of the potential of the metaverse to make learning more engaging and immersive, and obviously people have been really recognizing the usage of technologies as part of their learning journey. However, I think your optimism might overlood some deeper issues about what kind of learning experience you actually want to create. While using virtual reality during history class sound exciting, education is not all about sensory immersion right? It is also about critical thinking, discussion and social interaction, which could be really hard to replicate in VR or we call it virtual spaces. You mention that metaverse learning could “revolutionize remote learning”, but doesn’t it risk reinforicing social isolation if students spend even more time behind headsets together with other devices rather than interacting face-to-face. So while I agree that metaverse learning has promise, I’d challenge the idea that it should become a mainstream replacement for traditional classrooms, it might be more valuable as a supplement than a substitute.