The Good Morning Britain presenter became embroiled in a serious debate on the ITV programme today, as the question arose about whether children need to be doing homework in the evenings.
The topic was started when 57-year-old Gary posted a frustrated note on his official Twitter page yesterday.
He declared: “Homework is a waste of time. Brings stress to the home, stress to the child, stress to the parents, stress to the parent – child relationship.
“Reading every night should suffice, imho.”(sic)
Ahead of a homework debate with British headteacher Katharine Birbalsingh alongside his co-host Susanna Reid this morning, Piers couldn’t resist taking a jibe at the television personality.
“First time Gary Lineker’s been humble in his life,” he commented, before furiously discussing the issue.
The angry presenter insisted he “didn’t want parents having children” if they were “too lazy” to spend an hour doing homework with them each night.
“It’s depressing,” 53-year-old Piers added.
Last night’s Twitter spat saw Piers and Gary enter into a long-running debate over whether homework was right or wrong.
Following Gary’s initial post, Piers replied: “A lot of LAZY parents will agree with you, Jugs. As a nation, we’re falling so far behind educational standards of countries like China, it’s embarrassing.
“Telling our kids to now give up on homework seems a perverse response to this….”
As the pair appeared to be getting more riled up by the issue, Gary snapped: “There’s always one, and it’s invariably you. It appears the vast majority disagree with you, including many that are not footballers…but parents.”
“Never mistake Twitter mob opinion for the ‘vast majority’, Jugs…” Piers then warned. “Most parents understand that homework, if well organised, plays an important part in their children’s education.”
Gary went on to remind the ITV presenter the “Twitter mob” are still people and many are parents, before insisting their opinions count just as much as the two of theirs.
“I agree that most of the Twitter mob usually disagrees with me, especially those that follow you,” Piers carried on. “But that doesn’t make me wrong.”
Gary added: “And neither does it make you right. They’re opinions and it’s alright to disagree.
“Now I must go and do some homework.”
Earlier on in the programme, Piers and Susanna faced another debate over obesity in the wake of model Tess Holliday’s Cosmopolitan cover.
Good Morning Britain airs weekdays at 6am on ITV.
