The Educational Metaverse and Vocational Education in the Web 3.0 Era: Development Demands, Practical Paths, and Risk Governance

Abstract

The educational metaverse is one of the several major application fields of the metaverse and a new educational form for the future, and its implementation technologies and ecological characteristics—immersion, interactivity, digital twins, persistent virtual space, and decentralized identity—coincide closely with the development demands of vocational education in the new era. This alignment matters at considerable scale: China operates roughly 11,000 vocational institutions enrolling about 35 million students, yet many programs remain constrained by the high cost of physical training equipment, since industrial robot cells, CNC machining centers, and automated production lines can absorb a substantial share of a program's capital budget—an obstacle that virtual training environments are well positioned to offset. The main demands of vocational education in the Web 3.0 era include eliminating social prejudices while accelerating development toward digital and intelligent directions; innovating evaluation methods and constructing a comprehensive evaluation system capable of dynamic tracking and data orientation; deepening the concepts of "bringing in" and "going out" while keeping pace with the globalization of vocational education; and improving the top-level design of vocational education so as to actively cope with the pains of industrial transformation. Based on these demands, the metaverse can assist vocational education along five practical paths: virtual teaching equipment that compensates for shortfalls in the capacity to run vocational schools; digital virtual environments that promote the occurrence of deep learning; digital virtual teachers that meet students' personalized learning needs; NFTs that facilitate the construction of "credit banks" and the implementation of the "1 + X certificate" system, a reform launched in 2019 under the National Vocational Education Reform Implementation Plan alongside the National Vocational Education Credit Bank; and vocational education training communities that promote the sharing of vocational education resources and educational fairness. Institutional momentum is already evident, as the 2022 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report identified the metaverse as an emerging technology for teaching and learning, and several Chinese provinces have begun building VR-enabled training bases in cooperation with technology enterprises. Finally, it is necessary to pay attention to taking the necessary measures to prevent risks such as data privacy leakage, illegal activities and false content, and the risk of lack of subject awareness.