Chennai: Debating Matters competition for high school students will be held in India from September 22, 2008.
Pioneered by the Institute of Ideas, UK, and supported by Pfizer, Debating Matters is a very successful schools debate competition in the United Kingdom.
The objective of the Debating Matters competition is to encourage students to engage with the specifics and complexities of issues that arise in the real world today. A unique aspect of the competition has been to involve high-calibre professionals from all walks of life — academics, journalists, business people, scientists and artists — in the judging of the competition.
The judges interrogate and engage in a debate with the speakers to judge how well they grasp topic. The emphasis is therefore also on interaction. Although debate will be in English, judging will be on content and not pronunciation, diction and style.
The competition is only for Class XI students and the teams will be provided with extensively researched topic guides for the debate at each stage of the competition.
The competition will have the following stages:
1) |
Online Elimination Test (OET) (open to all schools) |
Schools |
|
2) |
Elimination rounds (12 schools per region) |
Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata |
6 -7 Nov 2008 |
3) |
Regional finals (6 schools per region) |
Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata |
9-10 Jan. 2009 |
4) |
National finals (winner and runner-up from each region – i.e. 2 schools per region) |
New Delhi |
15-17 Jan. 2009 |
5) |
UK finals (winners of the national final and the TV edition) |
London |
July 2009 |
Each school can register a six-member team right from the Online Elimination Test stage. However, they can register a minimum of four students.
At elimination round B, only two students will actually debate each motion, but others on the team can help them prepare and then come in at the audience questions stage.
The schools can log on to the following link www.britishcouncil.org.in/debatingmattersindia/ for the registration process.
