adminPUPILS from Usher and Mtshabezi High Schools in Matabeleland South will represent Zimbabwe at the World Debate Championships which will be held from 27 July to 6 August in Singapore.
The delegation, comprising the debaters — Zibusiso Ndlovu and Charming Dube from Mtshabezi and Lompopoma Khumalo and Kundai Nobela from Usher Girls High, three officials from Contemporary Affairs Foundation (CA-F) and a teacher will leave the country next Sunday on a mission to offset some their opponents on Asian turf.
This is the first time a Zimbabwean team has competed in the competition.
“The students are ready to go and we are all geared up to go and represent the country at the championships. We believe we have capable debaters in the four young people we have on Team Zimbabwe and we do hope that through them our national flag will indeed fly,” said Talent Mathe, CA-F programmes director.
The World Schools Debating Championships is a global competition for high school debaters. The championship takes place each year in a different country, hosted by a national debating body — with Contemporary Affairs Foundation managing the Zimbabwean delegation.
All debates will be in English and each registered nation can submit a squad of up to five debaters, who are all in full time education within that nation, to debate on social, moral and political issues.
Zimbabwe will face Israel, Austria, Slovenia, Hungary, Spain, India and Macua in the seven rounds of debate — some of which will have motions. The motions for all other rounds and the octo-finals, quarter-finals and semi-finals) will be impromptu rounds for which the motion will be released only one hour before each debate begins.
Motions in the preliminary rounds will be as follows:
Preliminary Round 1
This House would ban the use of zero-hour contracts
Preliminary Round 2
This House would require defendants in criminal trials to be represented exclusively by public defenders
Preliminary Round 3
This House supports academic tracking in primary and secondary education
Preliminary Round 5
This House believes that cities with significant immigrant populations should actively break up ethnic enclaves
Bongani Ndlovu