Students of the UG’s Faculty of Management have won an Oxford-Style debate on the lowering of the pension age, which took place in the Trading Floor of the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Their opponents were students from the Warsaw School of Economics.

The Student Oxford-Style debate concerning the issue of reducing the pension age took place between students of the Institute of Banking at the Warsaw School of Economics’ Collegium of Socio-Economics, represented by the Market Analysis Student Circle and students from the University of Gdańsk’s Faculty of Management, represented by the Finance and Banking Student Circle.

In line with the rules of the Oxford-Style debate, a draw took place, as a result of which the University of Gdańsk team argued against the motion that the pension age in Poland should be reduced, while the Warsaw School of Economics team defended it.  

The debate was moderated by Professor Małgorzata Zaleska from the Warsaw School of Economics and Professor Leszek Pawłowicz from the University of Gdańsk. The Committee of Wise Men consisted of Professor Marek Góra, Professor Witold Orłowski and Dr Wiesław Rozłucki – the first chairman of the Warsaw Stock Exchange.

Before the debate a vote was taken amongst the public to indicate preferences on the chosen standpoint. The same vote was taken after individual team members had spoken. In the latter, the public tended towards the motion that the pension age should not be reduced. The debate was therefore won by the UG’s Faculty of Management team which had convinced the greatest number of people to change their mind.

The University of Gdańsk team was made up of Angelika Krawczyk, Błażej Dobek, Michał Czyżewski and Wojciech Rosener (Faculty of Management).

Before the debate, Dr Kamila Bielawska and Dr Adam Barembruch from the University of Gdańsk’s Faculty of Management worked with students on the motion and the arguments.

The debate took place on 15 January 2016.

Patrons of the event were: Warsaw Stock Exchange, Rzeczpospolita newspaper,  the Institute of Banking at the Warsaw School of Economics and the Department of Banking at the UG’s Faculty of Management.

It’s worth remembering that this is just the latest meeting on socio-economic issues to be organised by students of the University of Gdańsk in the form of an Oxford-Style debate. The previous one, entitled Should assistance be made available to those with Swiss franc mortgages? took place in October 2015. The Committee of Wise Men on that occasion was made up of Maciej Grabowski (Environment Minister at the time), Mirosław Gronicki (former Minister of Finance) and Dariusz Filar (former member of the Monetary Policy Council), and the debate was moderated by Jan Krzysztof Bielecki.