Education is of paramount importance in South Africa. While it’s relatively accepted that being at school will involve a certain amount of learning, doing it away from a classroom calls for a more interactive and entertaining approach. That’s where MTN’s XR Academy subscription services comes in.

MTN continues to innovate, making access to the future more accessible. Users can interact with sculpture, the human body, or even go stargazing — think of it as stealth education, but much more fun. These VR experiences are also zero-rated by MTN for its customers, so learners who may not have access to school laboratories can also experience learning in a fun and visual way.

XR Academy isn’t confined to those of school-attending age. The service’s high-end educational content is available to all age groups, from the very young to those who thought their learning days were far behind them. No matter which age bracket you fall into, there’s something on the service for everybody.

Extended Reality

XR, as an acronym, typically stands for Extended Reality, a catch-all term for the technologies encompassing augmented and virtual reality, in the forms they currently exist in. XR Academy, then, is a learning experience quite unlike most you may have encountered. Using nothing more than a smartphone or, in the event that there’s a compatible headset available, a virtual reality headset, subscribers can immerse themselves in lessons and experiences that offer more interactive exploration than your average YouTube video or classroom lecture.

The various experiences were created by educators, computer scientists, software developers, and 3D artists and cover a wide range of interesting topics. Astronomy, which concerns itself with the formation, movement, and makeup of stars, planets, and other cosmic phenomena, is an ideal field for virtual exploration.

Biology, a similar exploration of living bodies, Geography, which concerns itself with the makeup of our physical world, and Arts and Culture are all given similar treatment, letting MTN customers immerse themselves in these subjects in ways they haven’t previously been able to.

Exploring and interacting with cells and elephants (and everything in between) has been optimised to work best without a VR headset – though if you’ve not got one, it’ll function just fine. Explore museums containing some of the most famous artworks from humanity’s history, get up close with animals from any angle, and do the same with the solar system, all from the comfort of wherever you might be holding your smartphone. All it takes is a small subscription fee, an MTN customer account and a smartphone to enjoy the best of MTN’s XR Academy.