By Kemo Cham
The first ever National Debating competition in Sierra Leone ended on Saturday after eight long days of intellectual exchanges.
The National Debate Championship, which took the Karl Popper and British Parliamentary Debate formats, brought together dozens of young Sierra Leoneans with passion for public speaking and debate.
The National Literary Debate Association, which organized the competition, said the competition dubbed ‘Assertion, Reasoning and Evidence Battle,’ is geared towards preparing the younger generation for future public engagement.
The participants were divided into 46 teams at the preliminary phase.
The entire tournament featured 258 debates. With 252 debates from Round 1 to the quarter finals, the qualifying teams in the British Parliamentary Debate category were: Dictionary Debonair, Prowess, The Engineers, Anthens, Afro-Optimists, Mansin, Martin Martinezz, and The Achievers. The Karl Popper qualifying teams were: Government Secondary School Kenema, Vision, Epic, and Digital Islam.
Five teams: Dictionary Debonair, the Engineers, The Achievers, Masin (British Parliamentary format], Vision and Epic [Karl Popper system] made it to the grand final which was held at the British Council Auditorium.
The Engineers won in the British Parliamentary Debate system, while Epic won on the Karl Popper Debate system.
The preliminary phase up to the quarter finals were held at the Government Secondary Technical School at Congo Cross from 24 to 31 August, while the seminal finals and finals were held at the British Council Auditorium on Friday 30th and Saturday 31 August respectively.
The winning teams went home with trophies named Leonis Golley-Morgan and Julius Pedini Memorial Debate Trophy.
The National Literary Debate Association has been holding debating competitions every year.
Mohamed Kanneh, Coordinator of the Association, said this is the first time ever the competition has been held in such a magnitude in terms of national representation. Kanneh told Politico that it’s the first time representatives have been sent from Bonthe and Pujehun districts.
He added that it’s also the first time they have organized the debate on the British format and Karl Popper style.
The debate was held on the theme: ‘National Security and the rights of migrants.’
Kanneh said the theme was influenced by ongoing events in the Mediterranean Sea which not only has effects on the youngsters involved in its but also their home of origin, like Sierra Leone.
“We realised that a lot of these people who migrate cause a lot of brain drain and negative vices for the countries' development,” he said.
“Importantly, it is designed to equip young people's sense of reasoning. It has to do with smart thinking,” he said about the reason behind staging the competition.
The goal of the organisers is also to prepare the participants to represent Sierra Leone at the annual World Debating Championship. But Kanneh said they have not been attending the global contest since the first and last time they ever did in 2011 because of lack of funding.
The global championship is convened every year around the month of July by the International Debate Education Association.
Kanneh said back in 2011, he had to make a personal appeal for the country to be allowed in the competition held in Turkey and the fees of 7,000 euros to be waived.
His team, he added, is working hard not to miss next year’s competition.
“Our long term goal is to have our national debate champions to be taking part in the world debate championship, so that they can showcase what we have here in Sierra Leone,” he said.
© 2019 Politico Online
