Students could find metaverse news in the early days of the new year to be interesting. A new education-supporting system in Japan uses the metaverse to help kids who aren’t interested in school.
The government is looking into the areas where children have a sense of belonging in face of the increase in students who are not attending school owing to factors like as difficult home environments and the COVID-19 pandemic.
This issue is likely to be given high emphasis by the newly constituted government agency for child and family concerns in April. The government is considering several options to help kids who aren’t in school, especially those who spend a lot of time online.
The Tokyo-based non-profit Katariba employs the metaverse, specifically its room-K virtual classroom, to aid these children’s education.
Katariba claims that Room-K aids children in building positive relationships with counselors, fostering a sense of community, improving social skills, and promoting academic programs.
Around 110 elementary and junior high school kids from Hiroshima Prefecture, Tokyo’s Bunkyo Ward, and other areas participate in room-K.
Depending on what they want to study and when students can make such decisions directly on their screens. Meetings last 45 minutes and cover topics like Japanese, coding, and group reading.
Room-K users can choose fictional characters, such as princes and princesses, to represent themselves in the virtual world. Users can start video chats with other members simply by walking up to their avatars. Students can get a feel for what a real school recess is like thanks to this feature.
As a result of widespread school closures caused by the new coronavirus outbreak, children missed out on opportunities to attend school and develop a sense of community, prompting the room-K project to be created.
Nearly 10% of room-K kids were able to return to school this fiscal year, despite various factors determining whether nonattending pupils can return.
Still, getting kids back into the classroom isn’t the end goal.
The head of Katariba’s room-K, Tomotaka Segawa, has made the following declaration: “To facilitate children’s academic pursuits, we intend to establish a conducive environment.
We aim to increase the options for cities that wish to help kids who aren’t in school “Several local governments have recently begun to accept online learning as a valid option to conventional schooling. Room-K participation is optionally counted as school attendance in the city of Toda in the Saitama Prefecture, north of Tokyo.
The number of students not participating in kindergarten through eighth grade increased to 244,940 between March 2021 and March 2022, according to the education ministry.
Quite a few cities have allowed for the development of educational resource centers specifically for these pupils. However, youth centers often struggle to draw in participants since their members do not have easy access to nearby resources or just do not like the atmosphere.
“More children will be saved if online connections are turned into an opportunity to support them,” said Segawa.
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