McInnes Congratulates North East Pupils on Reaching Final of Public Speaking Competition

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Wed 20th Jun 2007

Alison McInnes MSP has congratulated three North East pupils and their schools on reaching the final of the "English Speaking Union's European Parliament Public Speaking Competition".

Two pupils from Albyn School in Aberdeen and one from Ellon Academy have reached the final which takes place this Thursday night (21st June) at the University of Edinburgh.

"Europe the Next 50 Years" is the theme on which the pupils will be speaking for the final, with the top prize being a trip to the European Parliament.

Commenting Mrs McInnes said "I know the pupils will have worked really hard to get to this stage and they should be congratulated on their fantastic achievements. They have done both their schools and the North East proud".

"Unfortunately I am unable to attend the final this Thursday night due to a prior arrangement, but I will be watching out for the result and wish both schools the best of luck."

The English-Speaking Union is an international educational charity founded in 1918 to promote "international understanding and friendship through the use of the English language."

• English has official or special status in at least seventy five countries with a total population of over two billion

• English is spoken as a second language by around 375 million speakers in the world

• Around 750 million people are believed to speak English as a foreign language

• One out of four of the world's population speak English to some level of competence

See http://www.britishcouncil.org/learning-research.htm for source, and more information.