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...