QE debaters have reached the European Youth Parliament national finals after putting in an excellent performance at the South East regional round.
Eight Year 12 boys headed to the European Commission’s London building in Smith Square for the EYP South East forum, where they and teams from two independent schools – St Paul’s and Guildford High – were chosen to go through to the national event later in the year.
Congratulating the team on its success, Academic Enrichment Tutor Helen Davies said the jury had given them very positive feedback: “The boys worked exceptionally well as a group, having done their research well; they made interesting points, often bringing new lines of argument into the debate.”
The QE sixth-formers defended a Committee on Security and Defence (SEDE) resolution which proposed steps towards greater integration and co-operation between the armed forces of European Union countries.
The 40-minute debate began with an opening speech from Akshat Sharma in which he stressed that, in view of the aggression it faces from countries including Russia and North Korea, the EU needs both to increase its spending on defence and to improve the level of co-operation between EU countries, so that the increased funding is spent effectively.
His stance was duly opposed by a speaker from Haberdashers’ Aske’s Girls’ School, to which Mipham Samten then responded. After further debate, Mipham gave a summation of the QE team’s arguments: “Mipham put a great deal of work into the team’s preparation and gave a leading contribution,” Miss Davies said.
The subsequent vote on the resolution was 63 against, and 14 for; Miss Davies pointed out that, in fact, no resolutions were passed throughout the whole day.
After the debates, the jury provided general feedback to all the teams, praising them for their enthusiastic participation and their research.
As well as Akshat and Mipham, the team comprised: Ibrahim Al-Hariri; Parth Gosalia; Shivam Masrani; Laurie Mathias; Anake Singh and Mudit Tulsianey.
They therefore had to research debating points and evidence in the 45 minutes after they were given the topics, which were:
The debates took place in four rooms and each was supervised by a member of staff and by an HBS sixth-former.
Pupils engaged well in all the debates, Miss Davies said, with interesting points being raised from the floor. “QE and HBS students clearly enjoyed working together and sharing their ideas with students from another school.
At the end of the day, the best eight debaters overall were asked to prepare for a final debate – and this time they were given just 15 minutes to prepare. The debate took place in front of all the other pupils, with all of them “rising to the challenge very well”.