Carol Vorderman has slammed “morally corrupt” Tories and said she’ll only help Rishi Sunak with his maths policy if he publishes his tax return.
The former Countdown star hit out at the Prime Minister’s plan for all children and young people in England to learn maths until the age of 18, with the Countdown star saying that ‘the system is not working for that’.
Rishi Sunak said on Wednesday that he aims to tackle high rates of innumeracy in the country, but the maths expert doesn’t think the proposed idea will be enough to get youngsters thriving in mathematics.
Speaking on LBC earlier this week Carol responded by saying, despite her strong opinions on the topic, she is ‘politically independent’ and that her interests lie in giving the best outcome possible to the children in our country.
"People are coming out of the education system innumerate for a whole host of reasons," she told listeners. "I support teachers but in primary school, most teachers, almost all, gave up maths at 16 at GCSE level."
The former Countdown star added: "It’s a bit of an elephant in the room in education because they’re a bit fearful of teaching it."
Carol is famous for being a maths whizz and gained a Masters degree in Engineering at the University of Cambridge before becoming the first woman to appear on Channel 4 when Countdown began in 1982.
In 2000, Carol launched "the numeracy hour" in primary schools with then-Prime Minister, Tony Blair and in 2011 chaired a task force for the Government to recommend the way forward for maths education in primary and secondary schools in Britain.
She also set up The Maths Factor – an online learning resource for children "to unlock every child’s confidence in maths".
Instead, Carol has suggested that teenagers who are ‘fearful’ of the more in-depth parts of numeracy – like trigonometry – should not be forced to learn those equations for the sake of an exam, and should focus on practical maths skills.
"Let’s just take a practical view and come up with something you don’t teach to the test, you can do it online, re-do it online, where you have a little video lesson and then you have a little test after so it’s like micro tests every day," she said.
"You don’t need to teach to an exam all the time because, sadly, teachers and schools have to keep doing this.
"They spend whole terms teaching how to answer a particular question which is set by an educationist, rather than the practicality about mortgages, about your salary, about tax, about all of those practical things that will help these kids as they get older."
In the scathing rant about the Government, she added: "My question is at what point does political negligence become criminal because what is happening in this wonderful country of ours is morally corrupt, in my opinion?"
Carol added how 'everyone knows about "PPE VIP lanes" and Mr Sunak’s "wife’s non-dom status".'
Ms Vorderman, who has advised previous governments in the past, said "people are suffering", and she mocked Mr Sunak in an impression of his New Year speech: "Oh we can do this and then everything will be fine."
"Are we in a parallel universe here?," she said.
Back in 2009, the Countdown co-host was asked by the Conservative Party to lead a review into the teaching of maths in schools across the country, which she said was ‘critically important’.
At the time, she said: "It's a critically important subject for the future of this country. If Britain is to emerge stronger from the recession, we have little choice but to sort it out now."
But, now Carol revealed she would refuse to work with the Government if asked now.
When asked if she would work with the Government as she has done before, she said: "Never. I'd say: Rishi mate, I'll come to Number 10 on one condition, that you give us all the information about these PPE VIP lanes, that they are trying to continue, even though we're out of the pandemic, and as you have promised, to make public your tax return - we haven't seen it - then, perhaps I'll come to Number 10. Before that, no chance."
