The national English debating team, nominated by the Debaters’ Council of Sri Lanka, emerged first runners-up at the World School Debating Championship final which took place on 2 August. The team previously won first place at the Tilbury House Debating Championship 2020 organised by the University of Cologne, which took place in June.
The team comprised students from schools in Sri Lanka, who were each chosen and mentored by the Debaters’ Council of Sri Lanka, following a rigorous process. The students participated in 10 debate tournaments locally, being narrowed down to a pool of 15 to 20 debaters who received training from the Debaters’ Council of Sri Lanka before six debaters were chosen to represent Sri Lanka on the world stage.
The team representing Sri Lanka comprised Shalem Sumanthiran from Royal College, Chanidu Ratnayake from Ananda College, Jasmine Markandu from Colombo International School (CIS), Janul De Silva from Royal College, and Rahul De Silva from CIS.
The team was mentored by their Technical Coach Sanjit Dias and Head Coach Kithmina Hewage, who also serves as this year’s President of the Debaters’ Council of Sri Lanka.
The World Schools Debating Championship is the World Cup of English debating at school level, with each country being represented by one team. This year’s championship featured teams from over 68 countries with six preliminary rounds held to shortlist 24 winning teams. These teams were then shortlisted further to 16 teams before going on to compete in the octo-finals, quarter-finals, semi-finals, and then the finals.
The Sri Lankan team beat Scotland, England, and Hong Kong in the preliminary rounds, going up against Ireland in the semi-finals and then against Canada in the finals before emerging first runners-up and second in the overall tournament.
Topics covered during the debate included a wide spectrum of issues like whether governments should control the distribution of all charity funding based on the efficiency of charities to whether international organisations should provide aid to groups affiliated with terrorist organisations. The topic in the final round of the championship was whether someone should choose a high-paying job versus a job they are passionate about. The Sri Lankan team debated in favour of pursuing work based on passion.
In addition to their position as the first runners-up, Shalem Sumanthiram of the national team was also ranked seventh in the English as a Second Language category.
The World Schools Debating Championship consisted of 11 days of debate spread out over two weeks. The championship was organised by the Mexican Debate Association and was initially planned to be held in Mexico as a physical event, though this was unable to take place as previously planned due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and was held virtually instead.
Speaking on the championship, Head Coach Hewage shared that much of the team’s preparation took place virtually, given the pandemic and limited movement.
Hewage also shared that while the World Schools Debating Championship is the largest tournament of the year, the team will be competing in smaller tournaments towards the end of the year, with Sri Lanka also potentially hosting an international championship as well.
