'There are 32 people after every job. How can I find work?' Rhys Harrison, 24, Pontypridd

I used to be a chef in America, but I came home to Pontypridd two years ago and haven't found a job since. I've applied for about 200-220 jobs in Pontypridd, Cardiff, Merthyr, and the valleys in general — but there's nothing happening. In Merthyr there are 32 people for every job, and in Cardiff there's nine. I have a chef's qualification, and a hygiene certificate that says I can safely work in any kitchen in Europe, but I've still had to broaden my search. I'm applying for supermarket work, cleaning – jobs that people with no qualifications can get. I've done some volunteer work with the Socialist party, and with my nan's church, but that's about it. I've had one or two interviews — but the last one was just to cut meat at a carvery. The most basic job in catering.

The people at the Jobcentre are on our side. But how can somebody find work when there's 32 people for every job? We need to start paying the minimum wage to people doing work apprenticeships and vocational degrees. We need to start giving people more than just part-time jobs. We need to build more houses for people so that they can move out of their parents' place and start buying things for their new homes. That'll contribute to the economy. But it seems the government would rather have young people stuck in their parents' house on 50 quid a week, or £6 a day, not doing anything.

I'm not an economist, but I think they should also lower the rates on special interest loans, and help people start their own businesses.

Looking for a job

Exercise 1: Answer the questions

1. Have you ever had a summer job/ part-time job? Was it well-paid? Did you work short hours? Did you have to work shifts?

2. What are the ups and downs of working for a big/small company?

3. In your opinion, which factors below are important for getting a job? Age/ sex/ appearance/ astrological sign/ contacts and connections/ experience/ family background/ handwriting/ hobbies/ intelligence/ marital status/ personality/ qualifications/ references/ sickness record/ blood group. What sort of information should you include in your CV?

4. Would you like to have a male or a female boss? Why? Should your boss be older or younger than you are?

5. What sort of people would you like to work with? Punctual/ reliable/ energetic/ hard-working/ humorous/ calm/ creative/ resourceful/ sensible?

6. What sort of clothes should/shouldn’t you wear to a job interview? What sort of questions are usually asked at a job interview?

7. Which of these do you think are the most important in a job?

chance of promotion good pay

comfortable working conditions good pension

company car health insurance

freedom interesting work

generous expenses responsibility

getting on well with your boss security

good holidays short hours

travelling working with nice people

8. Can you work in a team/ work under pressure/ work odd hours at short notice/ work in a fast-paced environment/ meet deadlines/ manage people?

9. Do you have good presentation skills/ excellent computer skills/ prior experience?

The great giveaway

Open courseware, where some of the world's best universities are offering free teaching, learning and research resources online, is a growing phenomenon. But will British universities embrace it?

Shola Adenekan reports /Wednesday January 17, 2007

In Nigeria, Kunle Adejumo, an engineering student at Ahmadu Bello University, is using print and video materials downloaded from an American university to prepare for an exam in metallurgical engineering. Thousands of miles away in France, Brigitte Bouissou, a teacher at an elementary school, is logging on to an internet video lecture being conducted by a professor of mathematics to prepare for the next day's lessons. Here in England, James Heywood, a 29-year-old web researcher, is solving his friend's computer security problems with knowledge gained from an online internet course run by a British university.

Welcome to the world of Open Courseware (OCW), where some of the best universities in the world are offering teaching, learning and research resources to education-hungry people across the globe. And the fees? Zero.

The OCW phenomenon began at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1999 by a faculty committee charged with looking at how the internet would change education and the role MIT would play. The committee considered how it might combine the institution's expertise and reputation with the internet's strength to deliver inexpensive content to a wide audience.

"That's when it occurred to us, why not just give our classroom's materials away?" says Anne Margulies, MIT's executive director of the OCW programme. "Such a giveaway would potentially provide educators around the world with tools they could use for their own instruction. Students at other institutions too will benefit from access to additional resources as might professionals in related fields."

And it was a good move. The concept of distance learning is not new and with the growth in use of the internet, many of America's leading universities originally planned to make huge profit from the sale of their knowledge. By 2001, this idea had foundered in the face of the dotcom bust. Lecturers realised that they were not going to become rich on their royalties, and that their books and articles would probably be out of print within a decade.

In late 2001, MIT finally bit the bullet and boldly changed its model by launching the OCW initiative.

MIT's initiative has attracted worldwide attention with 1.4 million users from Darfur to Azerbaijan. Proponents say the main beneficiaries are those in the developing countries, where students cannot afford essential textbooks and universities lack enough resources to set up courses.

The main funding for most of these projects is coming from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the charity set up by the American entrepreneur William R Hewlett.

Now, the concept of OCW has arrived in the UK. And who better to pioneer it than the Open University (OU), which has four decades of creating materials that support the distance learner.

Since its launch, the OU's Open Learn has attracted more than 100,000 visitors with 7,000 registered users. "Yes, people are often surprised at the idea that we're giving away our crown jewel," says Andy Lane, the director of Open Learn. "For the first time, we are making some of our educational resources freely available online to anyone in the world. We are encouraging learners to become self-reliant but also to use online communities to support their learning. We are making it possible for educators to download and adapt our materials for their own purposes. All of this will teach us a huge amount about how people can learn and teach online."

So, what future challenges will educators face in an OCW-led world?

Candace Thille, the director of Open Learning Initiative at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, warns that sustaining this new trend requires results and that more studies of the impact of open education resources are needed.

It is a sentiment shared by Fredric M Litto, the director of the school of the future at Brazil's Sao Paulo University.

"Most universities today are unprepared for the changes society requires, they are not versatile or very adaptable," he says. "Most universities have still not perceived that the arrival of new information technologies totally changes the role of the institution and the educational process and those that cannot adapt to the changes due to institutional inertia will see their function turn obsolete, their financial basis destroyed, their technologies substituted and their role in scientific and intellectual research reduced."

Exercise 1: True or False? Find sentences in the text to prove your point of view

1. Distance learning is only aimed at students at different institutions around the world.

2. A lot of universities are planning to make huge profit from the sale of their knowledge.

3. In the US, distance learning is predominantly a federally funded project.

4. You can use Open Courseware even if you live in Azerbaijan.

5. In the UK, the Open University has been creating materials for the distance learner for forty years.

Exercise 2: Match the synonyms

inexpensive follower

to go bust ten years

obsolete idea

concept rather cheap

decade to go bankrupt

proponent outdated

to launch to get

to gain to set up