On Thursday 13 November the entire Lower Sixthand Upper Sixth attended the Sixth Form Conference at St Albans
Cathedral. The programme is run by the Education Centre based at the Cathedral
and the purpose of the Conference is to encourage students from various schools
to participate in an event which takes the form of the BBC programme “Question
Time”.  Students are asked to submit questions for the panel in
advance.  The award-winning journalist and broadcaster Samira Ahmed
chaired the panel and chose the questions she considered worthy of attention.

Photograph: St Albans Cathedral Education Centre

A question from Millie Norton (Upper Sixth) was used to open
the session. Millie asked, “Should we let UK citizens, who have been
fighting with the jihadist group in Syria, return to the UK?”. Amongst the panel, which included Anne Main (Conservative MP
for St Albans), Julie Bindel (Justice for Women) and David Heinemann (Index on
Censorship,) there was a general consensus against jihadists as religious
fundamentalism was threatening pluralism and liberalism. However, there
was an acknowledgement that there could be a real danger of Islamophobia. Millie met the challenge of replying with an articulate justification of why jihadists
should not be allowed back into the country, which elicited a strong reaction
from the panel who unanimously supported the idea of rehabilitation.

Photograph: St Albans Cathedral Education Centre

Toluwa Agboola (Lower Sixth) was invited to close the session. She raised the question, “Are UKIP and Farage truly in political contention or is their recent prominence temporary?”  The question led to a lively final debate as to the future of UKIP and whether there was any possibility that Farage could be part of a coalition in the future!   Well done to both Millie and Toluwa.

During the Conference other questions were raised:

• Has anything been achieved in Afghanistan?
• Do the armed forces have a future?
• Has the cost of University education created a system of
  apartheid?
• Should there be full enfranchisement for sixteen year olds?
• What is the role of Feminism?
• Should gay marriage be legalised?
• Should released prisoners be allowed to return to their
  original locations? 
• The case of the footballer Ched Evans was debated and
  a vote was taken amongst the students, who rejected the idea that he should be
  allowed to continue a high profile career since he had shown little remorse.