Five government schools in Chennai take 'Metaverse' route to learning

CHENNAI:  The State school education department, along with a private VR and AR startup, on Monday launched 'Meta Kalvi/ programme under which virtual reality (VR) labs were created in two corporation schools and three government schools in Triplicane constituency.

The initiative aims at helping students visualise theoretical concepts and understand them easily. 

The project was launched in the metaverse at Lady Willingdon College in the virtual presence of DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi and CM MK Stalin. Chennai Central MP Dayanidhi Maran, School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi and Chepauk-Triplicane MLA Udhayanidhi Stalin were physically present at the event. 

Under the project, science and math lessons for Classes VI to VIII have been converted into virtual reality modules, taught both in English and Tamil language. Meynikara, a VR and AR startup based out of Chennai, has helped the education department launch the project under its CSR initiative. 

"The lessons that are currently available in VR mode include composition of rockets, solar system, galaxies, atomic structure and other molecules. Students can perform exercises such as assembling the rockets themselves after each lesson in virtual reality. After getting feedback from these five schools, the project will be expanded to other schools," Meynikara founder R Raghuraman said. 

The ‘Meta Kalvi’ project aims to revolutionise learning experience of students and private schools are expected to quickly embrace the technology. Teachers will be trained first and they can assess students. Individual dashboards will be provided to each student to track progress.

Initially, 20 VR headsets along with joysticks were provided to the five schools. The headsets come with six inbuilt modules, three each in science and math.

"We were able to see the solar system close. We could even zoom and see the number of rings on planets. It was a new experience for us and we were able to understand them better," said Christina, a Class 8 student of Lady Willingdon Government Higher Secondary School. 

The project is expected to help in enhancing students’ interest in learning. "What is difficult now is not teaching but kindling the interest of students and building their creativity. We hope this project will reduce the dropout rate," said Ganeshram, co-founder of Meynikara.

While the project was started in one constituency, the school education department focuses on improving STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education and extending this project across the State, said Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi. He urged private firms to sponsor VR labs in government schools.

"From Periyar to Anna to Karunanidhi and Stalin, the one thing they taught us is to take education to underprivileged. That is what we are following. We are happy this initiative is started in a government school," said Udhayanidhi Stalin.