Nurturing Young Minds at APU

Over the weekend of the 12th to the 14th of September 2014, APU hosted the first ever National Debate Championship for Novice debaters in the British Parliamentary format, as part of the APU Debate Society's efforts to contribute to the national development of young debaters.

The tournament was a tremendous success in attracting some of the region's brightest minds of tomorrow. The 108 team strong participation created the ideal environment of competition and growth for more than 300 participants. Participants included schools and universities, both public and private, stretching across from the North of the nation in Kelantan & Pahang to the South in Johore, in addition to participation from Singapore as well.

The teams debated through 5 preliminary rounds across 2 days to qualify for the Octo-Finals, where only 32 out of the 108 may proceed. The knock-out rounds were held on the third day (Sunday) where 32 teams compete in the Octo-Finals for 16 teams to proceed to the Quarter-Finals and likewise until 4 teams qualify for the Grand Finals. The successful grand finalists were HELP University, Nanyang Technological University, University Malaya & SMK Damansara Jaya. Out of the four teams, Nanyang Technological University was awarded the Championship on a close vote between 9 judges. As per convention, awards were given for the Champion, Grand Finalists, Finals Best Speaker, Overall Best Speaker & Top 10 Best Speakers of the tournament.

The primary uniqueness of the tournament lay in its provision of  a sufficiently competitive and diverse yet unintimidating  platform for young debaters to grow, this was primarily facilitated by the presence of current and alumni debaters of the Malaysian debating community to judge and provide developmental feedback.

In addition, the goals of the tournament were facilitated by the world class combination of Chief Adjudicators tasked with setting the topics for debate; these were Mai Mokhsein from UT MARA who has won countless National Debating Championships, is Asia's Best Speaker and a recipient of the Debate Golden Award, Behrad Taadoli from APU who's the Champion of the Kopitiam Ekonomi Debate Challenge, a Quarter Finalist of the Australasian Debating Championship and a Quarter Finalist of the Asian British Parliamentary Championship, Sheikh Muhammad Faizal who's a Quarter Finalist of the ESL category of the world's largest debating championship (WUDC), a Semi Finalist of the Australasian Debating Championship (ESL) and a Quarter Finalist of the Asian British Parliamentary Championship and Kanna Parmatheva who's a Champion of MMU Intervarsities, IIU Intervarsities & the Malaysia Debate Open.

The tournament host, the APU Debate Society, has been an active member of the Malaysian debating community since its foundation in the last quarter of 2009. The society has a diversity of achievements in debating, adjudication as well as organisation of tournaments. Some of its achievements include representing APU to the grand finals of the ESL category of the world's largest debating championship (WUDC), the Quarter Finals of the Australian Debating Championship, reigning as Champions of the Kopitiam Ekonomi Debate and most recently being runner ups at the Indonesia Debate Open held from the 4th to the 8th of September 2014.