The laureates of the Flemish Social Sciences Contest were announced

1249 pupils in Flanders participated in the second edition of the Social Science Contest, an initiative of the Flemish Olympiad Association. Eveline Pylyser (Maerlant Atheneum Blankenberge), Tatjana De Bruyn and Laura Pauwels (Sint-Jozefscollege Aarschot) and the team of Fatima Karem and Esma Ucan (Lucernacollege Antwerpen) took home the first price of the contest. 

The final of the Social Science Contest took place at the campus of the College University of Brussels in the city centre of Brussels. President of the Flemish Parliament Jan Peumans and Flemish Minister of Education Pascal Smet were the guest of honor of the price ceremony. During his speech Peumans announced that the contest raises awareness of social problems and he also invited the winners to visit the Flemish Parliament. Minister of Education praised the organization and stressed on the fact that the contest seeks to discover the hidden talents of our youngsters and puts them in the spotlights.

The variety of the projects was catching the eye of the audience: projects about social media, poverty, genderdiversity, the Arabic revolution, discrimination in Europe and drug problems. Therefore it was a challenge for the jury of 16 professors and 13 politiciens like senator Bert Anciaux, Flemish Deputy Vera Celis, Federal Deputy and Professor Eva Brems, Prof. Dr. Johan Leman (KULeuven), Prof. Dr. Ides Nicaise (KULeuven) en Prof. Dr. Johan Ackaert (UHasselt) to evaluate the research projects. After a first selection, the 30 finalists competed for the first place. They presented and defended their project orally in the classrooms of the College University of Brussels.

Winners of the contest Fatima Karem and Esma Ucan were handed out a price of 500 euro for their research on the partner choice by youngsters of ethnic minorities in Europe. Jobstop also offered them to participate in a social internship program in Ghana. Eveline Pylyser with her paper about anorexia and Tatjana De Bruyn and Laura Pauwels with their research on suicide in Belgium also won 500 euro. The other finalists were also praised for their work. Professor Johan Leman had the honor to hand out the prices and he said that the quality of the projects is equal to first bachelor degree. “These pupils are ready for higher education”, Leman added.