Most people would class a Hyundai-Kia alongside special-needs vehicles or pope-mobiles, but the sleeping Korean giant is actually the 5th largest automotive group in the world. And they have ambition: The group has said that it will invest the best part of £2bn in order to make itself one of the four top manufacturers of low-emission vehicles by 2012, in fact the company expects to be able to build fuel cell vehicles on standard production lines by 2015. Korea is cash rich at the minute, so give these chaps a serious bit of thought if you want to work on wheels.

Tags: green car technology, planes trains and automobiles, working with automobiles

Apparently students are still too well off according to two thirds of vice-chancellors, so to help you out of your excess cash they want to raise tuition fees to between £4,000 and £20,000 per year.

From this two thirds more than half want fees raised to at least £5,000 with no upper limit.  This begs the question what else could you buy for £5,000?  Well there’s the obvious 500,000 penny sweets or over 5,000kg of pasta?  OK, maybe it is better spent on an education, but is this viable when the average graduate wage is around £20,000 per year?  The old vice-chancellors obviously need their offices refurbished!

This news comes at a bad time for students as the government is set to review university fees later this year.  Even worse news in a separate survey, conducted by Universities UK, it is felt that students would accept fees rising to £5,000 per year.  £7,000 would be too much, but apparently £5,000 would be met with acceptance as it is “effectively maintenance of the status quo”.  Look out for new news on this, it should get interesting.

Tags: tuition fees, Universities, University

A Labuor MP has claimed dyslexia is a myth invonted by educition cheifs to cover up pour teaching. Backbencher Graham Stringer, MP for Blackley, describes the condition that effects 6m people as a “cruel fiction” that should be consigned to the “dustbin of history”. Stringer thinks millions of pounds were being wasted on specialist teaching for what he called a “false” condition, and argues that children should instead be taught to read and write by using a system called synthetic phonics, citing that dyslexia had been wiped out in West Dunbartonshire where the council has introduced the synthetic phonics system of teaching, also known as linguistic phonics. His Daily Mail baiting blow: “If dyslexia really existed then countries as diverse as Nicaragua and South Korea would not have been able to achieve literacy rates of nearly 100%. There can be no rational reason why this ‘brain disorder’ is of epidemic proportions in Britain but does not appear in South Korea or Nicaragua.”  However, the British Dyslexia Association, (BDA) which campaigns for the use of phonics and multi-sensory teaching to help solve child literacy problems, said the MP had failed to grasp the issue: “Mr Stringer assumes that literacy will solve the issue of dyslexia, however although many dyslexics have acquired the skills of reading, there is no doubt that they still remain dyslexic.” Ummm…if people can read and write without difficulty or error; job done, no?

Tags: graduate career opportunities with dylexia, how to pass a job interview with dyslexia, Working with dylexia

Ryanair has got to be an employer of choice right now; when they aren’t misleading customers with false claims in advertising; or crash landing in Rome, they’re asking their staff to take their clothes off and fellate the top-up tube of a life jacket. It’s okay though; its all for charidee. The firm is once-again selling a children’s charity calendar on flights that shows real Ryanair staff in bikinis posing in various locations around an airport and on-board their planes. The Girls of Ryanair Calendar 2008 will be available on board all flights from Saturday November 17, with money going to Angels Quest, which provides respite care for special needs children. Nice.

Tags: graduate careers with Ryanair, Planes, Trains and Automobiles

It was the swish ceremony for the Green Business Awards this week – hosted by Mock the Week’s Hugh Dennis. On the menu (I guess) was Pea Soup, Carbon-ara, and Petit 4×4s.  Eurostar scooped the coveted award for Best Large Company while furniture maker HJ Berry & Sons picked up the prize for best SME. Other winners included Dalkia (Best Energy Company), The Green Insurance Company (Best Financial Business) and McCain Foods (Best Consumer Goods and Retail Company).

Tags: an ethical graduate placement, graduate opportunities with Green companies, Green businesses