Singapore Secondary Schools Debating Championships 2007

"This House Believes That The War on Terror Has Been Counter-Productive."

This is the motion that decided the fate of 'A' Division top contenders Singapore Chinese Girls' School and Catholic High School in the fight for this year's Singapore Secondary School Debating Championships 2007 title.

To provide a level playing field, the championships are split into three divisions - The 'A' Division, for schools which have extensive and long-established debating traditions, the 'B' Division, for schools which are newer to the inter-school debating scene but have enjoyed some success, and the 'C' Division, for schools with very limited experience in competitive debating.

Both schools were evenly matched. But it was never about the battle of the sexes.

I thought that the Singapore Chinese Girls' School had an easier job being the proposition because there were loads of information supporting the fact that the war on terror is more or less a failure. The best speaker of this year's
championship, Susannah Wang, charmed the crowd with her persuasiveness and quality of arguments presented. Overall, I thought the SCGS team possessed more teamwork and their content was backed by strong concrete facts.

Catholic High School did great too! I particularly liked the way the third speaker, Arianto Usman Adamy presented. He adopt the fast speaking, quick talking way of delivery but rather a paced and calm style of presentation. I thought it was more impactful considering the previous five speakers were just shooting off the points that they had. You could also see the team trying their best to present facts supporting their arguments.

However, it was not enough. At the end of the night, SCGS was crowned champions of the Grand Finals of the 'A'Division Championships. It was partly expected that the title would be theirs. After all, the girls handled the whole debate well and they had the better side of the argument.

Sponsored and organised by Julia Gabriel Centre for Learning for the ninth year, this year's competition featured a record 84 schools and over 1,000 students involved. As a testament to the rapidly growing popularity of debating in Singapore, more than half the number of participating schools this year competed in the 'C' Division which comprised of 47 schools, 10 of which were participating for the first time.

Through encouraging debate in Singapore, the championships aim to promote high standards of speech communication and also help students learn skills of persuasion, negotiation and confident self-expression.

Technorati Tags: Singapore Secondary School Debating Championships 2007, Singapore Chinese Girls' School, Susannah Wang, Catholic High School, Arianto Usman, Julia Gabriel Centre for Learning, War on Terror

Regards,
Rashedul Hasan Stalin

Source:Youth SG Singapore Website
http://youth.sg/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2542&Itemid=29#