Payday loan company Wonga has removed pages from its website after it was branded “incredibly irresponsible” for targeting UK students.

However the lender said it would still accept applications for short-term loans from working students.

The National Union of Students (NUS) said it was wrong for the company to push the loans – with a typical APR of 4,214%. However, an official study said that these loans could prove useful for some people.

Wonga replaced an article on its website about short term loans for students with a statement saying the previous article was out-of-date and “gave rise to misunderstandings.” The company said the original article was written as part of a strategy to make its services easier to find on internet search engines.

Promoting such high priced loans to students had prompted a flurry of protests on Twitter.

Souce: BBC

The death of classroom textbooks is predicted today by the new leader of the country’s top girls’ schools.

In future, pupils will access texts through smartphones and e-readers, Louise Robinson, the incoming president of the Girls’ Schools Association, said in her first interview.

“Taking on board the fact that textbooks will be on your mobile, whatever shape, name or type of fruit your mobile relates to… anywhere, any time, any place – it’s a huge possibility,” she said. Pupils could learn more from the “magic” of using smartphones and tablets than from simply reading a book, she argued. In addition, they can access information in advance of lessons. “If you say: ‘The next lesson is going to be on the skeleton’, what you can see online now in terms of the skeleton and where you can go with it makes children have far more control over their learning that they ever could do before. One click and you’re into another world,” she added.

However, children would have to be taught how to access information properly online, she cautioned. “You and I wouldn’t send a child into a library and say ‘Go and have a look’,” Mrs Robinson said. “You’d actually help them, show them where the information is to access and which bits they should be looking at for their age and stage.”

Source: The Independent

Skidding on to the Nintendo 3DS comes Mario Kart 7.

Pick your favourite Mushroom Kingdom character and aim for the chequered flag in the latest addition to the popular Mario Kart family. With new tricks under the hood Mario Kart 7, for the first time, gives you the opportunity to customise your karts to give you the edge in a race and gliding karts!

Unemployed young people face a “very real challenge”, Employment Minister Chris Grayling has admitted. But he said he was determined to get them into work as soon as possible and promised the government would not leave them “sitting there indefinitely”.

His comments to the BBC come a day after figures showed a record 1.027 million 16 to 24 year olds were unemployed.

Chris Grayling’s comments came before the government announced further measures aimed at reducing youth unemployment. Under its plans, £4.5 million will be given to colleges in areas of especially high youth unemployment to set up around 250,000 extra work experience placements.

Mr Grayling stressed the importance of such measures, stating that “we are seeing something like half of the young people who go into work experience placements getting into work afterwards”.

The new plan brings together many elements of the government strategy which was announced by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg last month.

The strategy aims to put into effect many of the recommendations made by the recent Wolf report on youth unemployment. It targets improving basic skills by combining work experience with ongoing English and maths lessons to form new vocational courses.

Source: BBC Education & Family

Nearly half of cancers diagnosed in the UK each year – over 130,000 in total – are caused by avoidable life choices including smoking, drinking and eating the wrong things, a review reveals.

Tobacco is the biggest culprit, causing 23% of cases in men and 15.6% in women, says the Cancer Research UK report.

Next comes a lack of fresh fruit and vegetables in men’s diets, while for women it is being overweight.

The report is published in the British Journal of Cancer. Its authors claim it is the most comprehensive analysis to date on the subject.

Lead author Prof Max Parkin said: “Many people believe cancer is down to fate or ‘in the genes’ and that it is the luck of the draw whether they get it. “Looking at all the evidence, it’s clear that around 40% of all cancers are caused by things we mostly have the power to change.”

For men, the best advice appears to be: stop smoking, eat more fruit and veg and cut down on how much alcohol you drink. For women, again, the reviews says the best advice is to stop smoking, but also watch your weight.

Source: BBC News

One in five universities have been given the green light to reduce their fees next October. However, the impact of the reduction will be to reduce fee levels across the country on average by just £39.

The reductions are mostly among the newer universities. They are bringing their average fees down to below £7,500, making them eligible to bid for 20,000 places set aside by ministers for those with lower fees.

In most cases, the reductions have been achieved by introducing fee waivers for groups of students – either those from disadvantaged homes or those achieving two A grades and a B at A-level. This allows them to bid for 60,000 places set aside for recruiting high-flying academic students.

Many of the 25 institutions given the go-ahead to reduce their fees have done so by switching from bursaries to fee waivers. In all, the universities will be forking out £70m less in bursaries.

Liam Burns, president of the National Union of Students, described the move towards fee waivers as a “con trick” which means that £70m would no longer be finding its way into students’ pockets. “They help the Treasury, who have to spend less on loans but are of no benefit to students whatsoever.”

The figures, published yesterday by the Office for Fair Access, showed the average fee in English universities would go down from £8,393 to £8,354 as a result of these measures.

Source: The Independent

See Puss In Boots in 3D, the spin off from the Shrek movies.

UK Universities appear to be facing a slump in applications ahead of the first year of higher fees, the university admissions body says.

The latest figures from Ucas show applications to university courses starting next October are down 12.9%. They show the number of students who have so far applied for places at UK universities is 158,387, down 23,427 on this time last year.

But Ucas says there may be a late surge nearer the January 15 deadline.

Tuition fees will be up to three times higher from October 2012, but Ucas says it is too early to say whether this will affect the final demand for places.

The admissions body says that application patterns this far ahead are historically unreliable as indicators of the eventual year-on-year change.

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