HAN wins debate-tournament
It’s possible you come across a shiny trophy of half a meter when you walk through the corridors of the HAN. Just before the summer holidays, three HAN-students won this trophy at the national HBO debate-tournament.
Thijs van Manen (teacher training course Geography), Ben Arts (Civil Engineering) and Esther van Assen (Culture and Society) entered the oral combat with the other teams of four different universities, at university InHolland in Rotterdam.
Preparation
‘Normally we totally trip when the proposition of the debate is to be revealed’, says Esther. Debating isn’t unfamiliar to the three students, as they are all members of the Nijmeegse Student Debate Union Trivium. ‘We received the propositions and roles (government or opposition) in advance, and could prepare our plea at home.’
Bye bye opponents
After the proposition is clarified once more in the auditorium, the teams withdraw to the study rooms for a short preparation. In the third round, the HAN-team plays the opposition of the posing: HBO students with the highest grades should get their tuition fees back. ‘Many students don’t take advantage of that because their parents pay their fees’, is Thijs’s argument. ‘Moreover, this is also demotivating many extracurricular activities, like volunteer work or management work.’ With this argument, they totally walk over their opponent, the government-team, and win after the first and second round also the third one.
Interfering audience
In the preliminary-rounds the HAN-teams wins all and eventually they face the team of the university in Leeuwarden (Noordelijke Hogeschool Leeuwarden) in the finals. The proposition is ‘Art- and Culture taxes should be brought into force’, and could not be prepared in advance by the participants. While the debate starts in the auditorium, Esther, Ben and Thijs rush to the hall to discuss their arguments. They have to plead for the proposition, even if they are actually against it. The audience, just like in the English Lower House, may occasionally yell and shout things like ‘Shame!’ or ‘hear’. This is not beneficial for your jitters when you are standing there in front of the microphone. But because of their strong arguments, and the opponents’ show of little substance, the HAN-team reached victory.
