Team Sri Lanka Fell England 3-0!

Team Sri Lanka has been making great strides at the World Schools Debating Championship 2015 in Singapore, and have currently completed 3 days of tiring debate.

This morning, Sri Lanka defeated Team England - the defending champions - on a unanimous decision, opposing the motion 'THBT in cities with large immigrant populations, the State should actively break up ethnic enclaves.' This is a massive leap forward in terms of Sri Lanka's performance at the tournament, and will certainly give the country some well deserved credit.

After 6 preliminary rounds, Sri Lanka's tally stands at 5 wins and 15 adjudicators. Sri Lanka lost to Malaysia on a split decision, and defeated China on a split, but has taken the rest of its opponents so far unanimously (Sweden, Taiwan, Macau, England).

The team now heads into a break day, beyond which they will face UAE and Philippines in their last two preliminary rounds of debate. They are in a strong position to make a very high break into the octo-finals, and we wish them all the best for the rest of the tournament.

Our congratulations to coach Tamara and her team for making the country proud thus far.

World Schools Debating Championship 2015

The World Schools Debating Championship is to take place from 27th July to 6th August in Singapore this year. In the build up towards this competition, the Debaters' Council inaugurated the National Training Pool in October 2014. The pool comprised the highest ranking speakers eligible for the competition, as determined by the Speaker Tab of the Sri Lanka Schools Debating Championship 2014.

Following several months of training, selections for the final team were held over several days in March, and the following debaters were selected to represent the national side at the competition this year:

Eran Fernando - Colombo International School
Amrita Khandpur - Colombo International School
Miriam Alphonsus - Methodist College
Devin Hewage - S. Thomas' College
Sidath Samarasinghe - Royal College

Eran Fernando is the team's only returning member from Thailand last year, but the team is full of experienced debaters who have been performing at the highest level in the local circuit.

The team is being coached by Ms. Tamara Fernando, who was a member of the national team in 2011 and made the Top 50 Speakers Tab in 2012.

The team has shown great promise in the past few months, and we wish them all the best as they take on the world at the end of the month.

Further updates on the team's progress will be made available on this blog.