On the 12th January, the Milestone Institute’s Debating Society hosted the annual National Qualifier to choose the competing two teams who will be representing Hungary at the Oxford Schools Debating Competition.
Oxford Schools is the largest British Parliamentary school-level debating competition in the world organised by the infamous Oxford Union Society. 52 students from all over Hungary competed for the honour to stand in the University of Oxford’s historic debating chamber in March. The National Qualifier was done in four rounds when competing teams of two debated motions such as This house would ban Cosmetic Surgery and This House Believes That Voters Should Pass A Political General Knowledge Test Before Being Allowed to Vote. From the 26 teams representing 17 different Hungarian schools based on the points earned in the three rounds, the judges chose the 4 best teams for the Final round.
The intriguing motion of the Final Round provided an extremely tense and gripping debate (available for viewing). Finally, the two teams on the opposition side provided to be the most successful who argued against the statement: This House Regrets the Characterisation of Soldiers as Heroes.
Congratulations to the winners who have fought hard to represent Hungary in Oxford on the 9th March: Emma Somos and Lili Juhász (from AKG) and Samu Marosi and László Dolgos (from ELTE Apáczai). We would like to also thank our esteemed judges: Miklós Hajnal, the coach of the Debating Society, Zsófi Murány and Gyuri Nemes from ELTE Vitaklub, Márk Priam, Gergő Horváth, Ádám Mészáros, Tomi Hermann, Daniella Walsh and Andris Sárosi, Milestone Alumni and Gréta Mile, the current Vice-President of the Milestone Debating Society
We would like to thank all participants who contributed to the extremely high quality debates. If you are interested in the scores from the individual rounds, you can view them here.
The Milestone Debating Society’s sessions are open to any student in Hungary, please join their facebook group for more details. The Institute also hosts the National Qualifier for the International Competition for Young Debaters, more info about that here.
