News
What the group is building
Notes from the companies of the VARDIX group — what shipped, what it took, and what it changed for the people using it.
26% below the science baseline: what PISA 2025 measured, and where a 3D classroom fitsPISA 2025 focused on science. On average across OECD countries the science score fell to 482 points from 489 in 2015, and 26% of students did not reach baseline Level 2. What the assessment asks students to do, what principals said about missing laboratory material, and what a 3D science classroom can and cannot do about it.Read the full material
Changing a die with the press still running: a September mine-safety notice asks for competence before the taskAn Australian mine regulator and the U.S. MSHA both described maintenance or cleaning done on equipment that could still move. The NSW notice asks operators to make sure workers are trained and competent before the task, including in the isolation procedures for the plant. Here is why that is hard to train on the real machine, and where a 3D maintenance course fits.Read the full material
A mine nobody can walk through: why industrial museums are moving into VRA museum in Estevan, Saskatchewan, has opened a virtual tour of coal mining operations in the area, and Munich’s Deutsches Museum now shows its dismantled demonstration mine in VR. ROQED, a VARDIX group company, has just completed a museum of this kind in Kazakhstan, joining a mechanical model of an open pit and plant with VR, AR and an AI agent with a full-height 3D avatar.Read the full material
Assigned at the morning meeting: what the Shell Monaca report says about who is trained for a taskOn 16 September 2026 the US Chemical Safety Board published its final report on the 2025 furnace explosion at Shell Polymers Monaca. A process control engineer who had never done the task was assigned it at the daily production meeting, and all 11 administrative controls failed because employees had not been adequately trained. What that asks of an employer, and what training cannot do.Read the full material
The autopsy room is emptying: what one hospital’s numbers mean for where pathology is learnedA study published in Academic Pathology in September 2026 found that autopsies at one US teaching hospital fell from 3.9% to 0.57% of inpatient deaths over 2019–2025, and that only 8% of signed consents ended in one. What that means for teaching pathological anatomy.Read the full material
A consent film takes minutes off the consultation: what two trials published in September 2026 measuredTwo surgical trials published in September 2026 looked at video in patient information before an operation. In Dijon, patients shown a video scored higher on understanding of lumbar decompression surgery than those given a leaflet. In Würzburg, video-assisted consent cut median physician consultation time from 8.1 to 1.5 minutes for gallbladder removal, with understanding reported high in both groups. What that means for whoever makes the film.
Four hours of talking to a patient: what an anaesthesia training trial swapped, and what it did not proveA randomised pilot published in Frontiers in Medicine on 8 September 2026 kept anaesthesiology teaching at 16 hours and replaced four hours of case discussion with AI virtual standardized patients. That arm scored highest. What a faculty choosing a simulation platform should take from it, and what the authors say it does not show.
A demonstration, not a deletion: what the new Czech rules on school chemicals ask of the chemistry lessonOn 21 September 2026 the Czech education ministry published guidance to Decree No. 121/2026 Coll., in force since 1 September. It sets a four-rung ladder for which hazardous chemicals pupils may handle, allows only one pupil at a time on the top two rungs, and asks schools to consider a teacher's demonstration, rather than dropping an experiment pupils may not do.
A procedure nobody wrote cannot be trained: what the Clairton report asks of maintenance trainingOn 10 August 2026 the U.S. Chemical Safety Board released its final report on the fatal 2025 explosion at U.S. Steel's Clairton Coke Works. It found no written procedure for washing the valve with water, and no training on the correct sequence of that operation for either the plant crew or the contractor. What that means for training maintenance crews in heavy industry.
The scarcest hour in clinical training belongs to the supervisorAn article published by The Hechinger Report on 24 August 2026 reports nurse practitioner students delaying graduation because too few clinicians will supervise them. When the scarce resource is a supervisor’s hour, the question for a faculty is what students can practise before they use it.
Who teaches physics when there is no physicist: what a new report on England’s schools measuredA report published on 9 September 2026 by the Education Policy Institute finds that only 55 per cent of physics teaching hours in England’s secondary schools are delivered by a teacher with a relevant degree, and that in the most disadvantaged schools outside London fewer than one in five physics teachers holds one.
Pathology taught as a case, not a chapter: what one course redesign measuredA study published on 8 September 2026 in Advances in Medical Education and Practice rebuilt a urinary system pathology module at Peking University around clinical cases. Scores rose in a class of 54 students, but there was no control group, and the authors say a controlled study is still needed.