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Youth Interactive Correspondent
Two primary schools, Mother Patrick Convent Primary and Amai Mugabe Junior Schools will be participating in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) debate competitions scheduled for Monday in Mozambique.
The initiative is the brainchild of Primary Schools Debate Challenge (PriDC) which is a non-profit making organisation that aims to educate African children on issues of child abuse and early child marriages.
PriDC organiser National Marwa said the schools are ready to represent the country in Beira.
“We have schools that qualified to compete in the SADC debate competitions to be held in Beira, Mozambique.
“The schools won the PriDC national competitions and will proceed to compete in the SADC competitions scheduled for July 31 to 2 August.
“The two primary schools will be debating against schools from Botswana, Swaziland, South Africa, Mozambique, and Zambia.”
Marwa said the initiative aims to educate children on issues of child abuse.
“We do this by organising debate and public speaking competitions for primary schools nationwide.”
He said, last year they were in Kenya.
“Last year we had high schools that competed in Kenya against schools in East Africa.
“We do provincial competitions then winners from the provincial proceed to the national competitions and we select two best teams from the national competitions.”
However, a survey conducted by Youth Interactive Section revealed that in today’s competitive world, it is very essential to teach children about the outside world through debating.
Communication is a fundamental need for human beings to sustain themselves in the world.
Having good communication skills plays a major role in developing the overall personality and to make a person successful.
A debate is a discussion on a subject on which several people share their different opinions, it can be favourable towards the topic or it can be non-favourable.
Nowadays, children are largely engaged in tech gadgetsand not getting involved in actual intercommunication.
These competitions help them to develop self-expression.
Debate Competition for students is very influential as it helps them to boost their confidence, remove the fear of speaking in public, develop critical thinking, how to think and communicate under pressure.
Students as a part of debate experience considerable advantages, whether they are part of school debate teams or if they debate as a member of a social or political club.
The main aspiration of being a part of the debate is to convey yourself concisely so that people around you understand your point of view and your thought process, but it should be done using logic that is convincing and effective.
Following points highlight the importance of debate competition:
- Debate honing the critical thinking
Debate hones the critical thinking skills of the students and allows them to inspect and scrutinize the subject matter they have been asked for. They develop the habit of not accepting passive information. They are enforced to examine those substances which have a certain meaning and throw out meaningless material. It motivates them to analyse what is their thought process and why they think in that particular way.
- Better understanding
In the process of debating students gain an understanding to have conviction in the things that they are saying as they have prepared well for the topic. After a certain time of participating in debate competition, the communication skill improves and the way of delivering the speech gets better in a confident manner.
- Increased retention
The debate is a very creative way of increasing the retention ability of the students as it is a vigorous and interesting way of learning which grab the attention of the mind thoroughly. Hence, participating in debate competitions helps students to recall everything that they have learned when it is compared to traditional learning.
- Team bonding and collaboration
Team bonding and collaboration are one of the things which build up during the debate. Collaborating in debate helps it to go well in a smooth manner and students participating in it feel confident and get support from their team members. It leads to strong team bonding.
- Motivation to research and learn
Debate participation helps in developing research skills and increases knowledge about a particular topic. When a child is going to represent his points in a debate he needs to substantiate it with the facts for which they need to research thoroughly. They need to indulge in research as it prepares them to perform excellently in the future. It allows them to examine the outside world other than academics.
We wish the best to the two schools.
Online Reporter