Carol Vorderman to give away nine £2,000 bursaries to maths students
TELLY brainbox Carol Vorderman is giving nine bursaries worth £2,000 each to maths students.
The Countdown legend, 61, is looking to help those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The grants will be given to selected UK applicants joining Swansea University this September for full-time undergraduate programmes in maths or actuarial science.
Carol, who read engineering at Cambridge University, said: “I particularly want to help students from a similar background to my own (comp and on free school meals) but these bursaries are available to all.”
She said she was inspired by her mathematics teacher to go to Cambridge.
She was one of only a few female students.
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A selection panel will assess applications, students’ backgrounds and their answers to questions on motivation to study and career aims.
It comes after the Government’s social mobility tsar was criticised for comments implying that girls do not study A-level science because they dislike “hard maths”.
Katharine Birbalsingh also told a meeting of the Science and Technology Committee that girls do not seem to “fancy” physics as much as other subjects.