The globalization trend has affected the tertiary education sector, resulting in an increased flow of both students and academics across borders. Economic pressures on universities and the emergence of new technologies have spurred the creation of new systems in engineering education. The recent advances in computer graphics have exposed great potential in education at all levels. The Virtual Reality (VR) is a promising technology which aims to assist the students in the visualization of concepts and to provide immediate graphical feedback during the learning process. This article presents a modular interactive teaching package, called Virtual Learning System (VLS), which can be used by people with little prior computer experience. VLS provides a comprehensive and conductive yet dynamic and interactive environment that can be incorporated into various courses in the field of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering. The evaluation of the learning process with the developed system has been done through laboratory reports, lab quizzes and questionnaires implemented with a tutorial monitoring application. (c) 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 19: 305-314, 2011; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com; DOI 10.1002/cae.20312