School debates: National team selected for international championship

Five selected from country’s top 36 debaters at five-day camp

LAHORE: The five-member Pakistan national team to participate in the World Schools Debating Championship, to be held in Turkey in January, was announced here on Sunday night by the Debating Society of Pakistan (DSP).

Zainab Hamid and Asad Pabani of Karachi Grammar School, Zainab Shahid and Amen Jalal of Lahore Grammar School Ghalib Market branch, and Abbas Shah of Aitchison College were selected for the team. Amna Askari of Karachi Grammar School and Aleena Ali of Lahore Grammar School Defence were selected as reserves and they will attend the championship as observers, possibly to participate in the next tournament, said DSP officials.

The announcement was made here on the last day of a five-day camp to select the team for the international championship in January 2013. Thirty-six debaters participated in the camp, held at the Lahore Grammar School Ghalib Market branch.

Speaking to The Express Tribune, DSP spokeswoman Maira Omair said the participants in the camp were selected on the basis of their performances in contests held across the country this year.

Thirty top speakers from the national championship which ranks debaters on their cumulative performance at national level events   and the six best speakers from the Under 17 debating championship were part of the selection camp, she said.

Besides the national championship, which took place recently in Lahore from September 22 to September 24, four other all Pakistan debating championships were conducted in the country, including at Lahore Grammar School Defence, Karachi Grammar School and Lahore College of Arts and Science.

According to DSP this year’s participation at the nationals was the highest in the history of the tournament, with a total of 44 schools participating.

Thirty-eight of these were from Lahore, so the DSP decided to hold the camp here too, said Omair.

The team was selected after intensive debate contests at the five-day camp, which started on September 26. The 36 speakers were whittled down to 20 in the first two days, and then 12 on the last day.

The five-member team and two reserves were selected from the 12.

Sufiyan Sultan, who coaches Karachi Grammar School, was elected coach of the national team and led the judging panel of four coaches from various schools. Two of the other three judges had also previously coached the national team.

Pakistan Debating Society President Taimur Bandey said transparency and merit was ensured in the selection of the debaters and the coaches. He said debaters in international championships were judged on style, content and strategy. He said they had analysed previous performances of Pakistan’s national team and strategy had often been their weakest link.

Though Pakistan has finished in the top 10 at international championships in previous years, Bandey said the debaters had weaknesses. He said they had given emphasis to improving body language, pace of speech and courtesy.

“These students are not just participating in a championship, they are representing their country,” he said. “When people interact with and see these contestants they ask me what the real face of Pakistan is, these children or what they see on their television screens. I tell them both, only this Pakistan is not highlighted enough,” he said.

The national team will be invited in December to attend a debating camp in Lahore before they head out to Turkey to represent Pakistan in the World Schools Debating Championship in 2013.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 1^st, 2012.

Correction: An earlier version of this article had misspelled Asad Pabani's name. The error is regretted.