Monday, December 6, 2010

World Schools Debating Championship 2011 - National Selections to commence soon

The World Schools Debating Championships for 2011 will be held from the 16th to the 26th of August next year in Dundee, Scotland.

As in the past 5 years, the Debaters' Council will conduct selections to chose the 5 Debaters who will represent the country at this event. The DC's selections have been endorsed by the Ministry of Education of Sri Lanka on all previous occasions.

For the purpose of selections, the Debaters' Council has appointed a renowned panel of selectors including those with extensive international experience both in terms of Adjudication and Debating.

As notified earlier, the top 15 speakers from the Sri Lanka Schools Debating Championships 2010 (organized by the Moot Court and Debating Society of the University of Colombo earlier this year) will be chosen by default to take part in the selection process.

However, in addition to the above, the Debaters' Council will open up selections to those deserving candidates who were either not placed in the top 15 or who were not able to participate at the aforesaid tournament due to unavoidable circumstances. For this purpose the Council calls upon all other interested students who have experience in English Debating to forward their Curriculum Vitaes via email to debaterscouncil@gmail.com by the 19th of December 2010. The selection committee will peruse the CV's submitted and chose deserving candidates which the committee feels would stand a reasonable chance of being selected to the 5 member national side. The CV should contain the following information:

1. Full Name
2. Date of Birth
3. School
4. Past Debating experience
5. Awards won for Debating

The eligibility criteria for WSDC 2011 are that the debater should not be above 20 years of age or below 14 years of age on the 16th of August 2011 and should have been enrolled in a Secondary School within 6 months from the commencement of the tournament.

The selected Debaters will be subjected to 8 workshops starting in early January, where they will have the chance to display their talents. At the conclusion of this process, the Selection committee will meet to determine the final 5 who will be chosen to attend the championships in Dundee.