Jay Blades is “passionate about black history”, and wants to see it taught to more school children.
Jay Blades
The ‘Repair Shop’ star has been lined up to appear in an episode of CBBC’s ‘Celebrity Supply Teacher’ this week, where he will give a history lesson to children who are stuck at home during lockdown, and has said it was a “no-brainer” for him to get involved with the series, because he thinks education is “the way forward”.
He explained: “For many years I’ve been working with young people and I believe education is the way forward.
“Teaming up with CBBC was a no-brainer, and I felt it was really cool to do ‘Celebrity Supply Teacher’.
“I’m very passionate about black history and think it’s very important to give people information they might not know.”
Jay, 50, already hosts weekly ‘Sunday School’ sessions through Instagram where he gives his followers bite-sized pieces of information about figures from black history, and says he wants to see the subject “taught to more people”.
He added: “It’s all about black people that have contributed to the fabric of the UK.
“I have been responsible for going into schools and doing black history lessons for a number of years and I think there is a lack of it, especially on the school curriculum.
“It’s not really fair. We should have a society that looks at both sides of the coin and I think it should be taught to more people.”
The presenter also spoke about the representation of people of colour on television, as he said that whilst it has “got better” over the years, there’s still “a long way to go”.
Speaking to the Daily Star newspaper, he said: “When I was growing up, there was a lot of direct racism on TV with shows such as ‘Love Thy Neighbour’. It has got better, but I think there still needs to be more representation and there’s still a long way to go.
“Hopefully, along with myself and other people that are on TV, we can show that black people don’t only contribute towards music or sport. We have craft, we have history and there’s a wealth of things we are interested in and have knowledge about.”