I was there and I witnessed it all. I was impressed too. This has to do with the 2012 Youth Parliament debates. I feel very excited that the whole movement caught the imagination of a decent sized audience. Right there, I suggest more publicity for this event. The experience for me was wonderful, and I am sure that it was so for the actual participants. I take this opportunity though to express a disagreement or two.

The first is that of the award/s given to the government’s main charge. Honestly, at times I was struggling to follow him [this was also expressed by other members of the audience]. His speech was blurred-I could not assimilate what he was saying. The man hardly stopped for a pause. He evidently needs a lesson in the art of basic communication. He is a C grade speaker, at best. I could not understand his affective rounding of words, particularly his ‘a’ vowel-this virtually became an ‘o’.
I include also his excessive grammatical errors. He can never get his subject and pronouns to agree in number and hence his verb agreements all went askew. What was laughable was that his non-stop rambling impressed the judges, or so it would seem. It is inconceivable as to how this individual was awarded as best speaker. There is a flip side to this too.
There was a speaker on the government’s side who is clearly in a league of his own. He even intimidated his opposition colleagues. Right off the bat, the young man was able to handle his opponents. His presentation was characterised not only by profundity and sufficiency of information, but by correct use of the Standard English. As for his vocabulary, maybe even the judges were taken aback. He got nothing-I was shocked.
I trust that the judges/coordinators will realise these are impressionable young people and their treatment of the youths was utterly undignified. I say no more, except to applaud all the participants for an outstanding job.