Selection Workshops for the World Schools Debating Championship 2014

The World Schools Debating Championship 2014 will be held in Bangkok, Thailand from 5th to 15th August 2014.

Students of secondary schools with significant prior experience at the inter-school level in English medium Parliamentary Debating, who are above the age of 14 and will not have reached the age of 20 by the 15th of August 2014, are eligible to apply for selection.

Interested students may submit a CV outlining their debating achievement along with Date of Birth, School Attended and relevant contact details before the 15th of January 2014 via e-mail to debaterscouncil@gmail.com

Successful candidates will be notified by the 22nd of January 2014 of their eligibility to participate in the selections, which will be held on the 25th and 26th of January.

Selections by the panel are subject to approval by the Ministry of Education.

Lilian Nixon Debating Championship 2013

The above tournament, organized by the Debating Society of Ladies' College, was held on the 26th and 27th of October 2013 with the participation of 40 teams - the largest tournament hosted by a school so far. The teams included the regulars on the debating circuit, as well as new teams like St. John's College Jaffna, Overseas School of Colombo and British School in Colombo. In order to ensure that the best from among such a large pool of teams would break into the knock-out rounds, the organizers scheduled four preliminary debates as opposed to the usual three.

At the end of the preliminary rounds, the following teams broke into the quarter finals:
(In descending order)

Colombo International School (A)
S. Thomas' College (A)
Royal College (A)
S. Thomas' College (B)
Colombo International School (B)
Ananda College (A)
Holy Family Convent (A)
Lyceum International School Nugegoda (B)

The quarter-finals yielded no upsets, and the top seeded teams won their respective debates to proceed to the semi-finals. In the semi-final round, CIS (A) beat STC (B) opposing the motion "THBT a corrupt democracy is better than a dictatorship", while Royal (A) beat STC (A) proposing the motion "TH supports the censorship of media in times of political crisis"

Thus, the Grand Final was between Colombo International School and Royal College, on the theme of "Law and Order". The debate was adjudicated by a very experienced panel of judges, which comprised Shan Dantanarayana (Chair), Nishantha De Silva, Deshan Pushparajah, Shamalie Jayatunge, Damitha Karunaratne, Rhadeena de Alwis and Michael Mendis.

The team from Royal College comprised

Kanchana Ranasinghe
Senith Abeyanayake (C)
Shechem Sumanthiran

while the team from Colombo International School was represented by

Eran Fernando (C)
Keshya Amarasinghe
Ramathi Bandaranayake

Royal College proposed the motion "THW give the people the power - via referendum - to pardon whistle-blowers". On a 6-1 split, the decision went in favour of the government, and Royal College became the winners of the Lilian Nixon Challenge Shield for the year 2013.

Shechem Sumanthiran of Royal College was adjudged the Most Outstanding Speaker of the competition.

The tournament's novice final was between Stafford International School and S. Thomas' College (C), and the latter emerged victors.

Congratulations to the winning team and to Ladies' College for a well organized and efficiently run tournament.

Apologies

The Debaters' Council extends its apologies for the dormancy of this blog over the last year. However, we are pleased to announce that the blog will now be updated as frequently as there are developments in the local circuit.

Please follow the blog for news and results of tournaments, and for other important announcements by the Debaters' Council.

Inter-International School Debating Competition

The above competition was organized once again by the Debating Society of Stafford International School, and the preliminary rounds were held on the 19th of October 2013. Six schools participated in the tournament, and faced off against each other in the first round. Lyceum Wattala, Lyceum Nugegoda and Wycherly International School won their respective debates and secured their berths in the semi-final, while Colombo International School took the last slot on account of having the highest speaker score among the losing teams.

The semi-finalist teams debated the motion "This house would force fast-food chains to display the calorie count of each item on their menu". Colombo International School and Lyceum Nugegoda won their debates against Wycherly International School and Lyceum Wattala respectively, and will thus face off in the Final, which is to take place in the weeks to come.