Feature

I was on vacation in Chittagong. And thus I could witness all three days of the 9th Inter-School and the 3rd Inter-University Drishty English Debate Competition at the Theatre Institute Chattagram 18-20 May 2009. The sponsor this year was Southeast Bank. The Financial Express, and Star Campus of the Daily Star were the media partners. The eight participating schools were all from Chittagong. They were: Child Heaven School; Radiant School; Cantonment English School; Chittagong Grammar School; Cider International School-I; Cider International School-II; Sunshine Grammar School; and Chittagong Sunshine School. Six of the eight participating universities were from Chittagong and two were from Dhaka. The participating university teams were: Islamic University of Technology (Dhaka); Stamford University (Dhaka); Chittagong University; Bangladesh School of Debate Chittagong University Chapter; Finance and Banking Debating Association, Chittagong University; Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology; University of Science and Technology, Chittagong; and International Islamic University, Chittagong.

This was my second experience with English debates in Chittagong by Drishty. The topics this year were relevant and pragmatic. Interesting presentations came out of the school topics like “all schools should provide music and art education”; “fast food restaurants do more harm than good”; and “cell phones should be allowed in school”. The university teams tackled topics that had a domestic and international connotation attached to them such as: “the only place for a just man in an unjust society is in prison”; “coal and oil are a greater threat than nuclear power”; “world is being drowned in coca cola”; and “to preserve peace we should prepare for war”.

Cider International School-I and Sunshine Grammar School entered the final of the school debate. The university debate was organised in the world's debate format with an upper and lower house of parliament. The top four teams contested in the world's format. The university students debated “tertiary education should be made free”; and the school students debated “developed countries should join in the fight of global warming”. Cider International School-I and Chittagong University won their respective genres. My personal best choices coincided with the final combined choice of the judges.

Last year Maliha Ahmed of Bay View School, Chittagong caught my attention. This year my best debaters were Priyom Das of Cider International School-I and Jewel Chowdhury of Chittagong University. Both of them constructively built their arguments and were sharp at identifying and refuting the opponent's gaps.

In a country where Dhaka is Bangladesh and Bangladesh is Dhaka, it is refreshing to see organisations like Drishty come forward and show there is more to the picture than meets the eye. It is even more refreshing to know that Bangladesh has un-tapped talent in these young debaters who will take this country forward when their time and chance comes. To make the objective of English debating more fruitful, it would be nice to see Bangla medium schools participate in future English debate competitions.

Today, English is no longer a language. English has become a universal tool through which people of different cultures and languages communicate. People of the same country find communication in English practical. Debates help analyse our surroundings through logic. An emotional decision with some logic is probably better than an emotional decision devoid of logic. To make Bangladesh competitive in today's world, we need more initiatives that encourage students to learn and apply their knowledge of English. My own observation from the academia tells that Bangladesh has no shortage of talent in the youth. Our next generation needs a platform and a stage to perform on. This is the only thing we can leave for them. If we can reach that end, the rest will simply be history. No stopping Bangladesh!

(Asrarul Islam Chowdhury is a university academic in Bangladesh)