Syria beats Tanzania in World Schools Debates’ Championships in Mexico

Damascus, SANA- The Syrian team won over Tanzanian counterpart in the first round competitions of the World Schools Debates Championships (WSDC) organized by Mexico remotely for the students of secondary schools which will last till July 24th with a participation of more than 65 states.

In a statement to SANA, Director of the Syrian Science Olympiad, Nubough Yassin, said that “this is the second winning of the Syrian team following beating Armenian team”, adding that the English language debates continue for the fourth successive day, as the first round includes six one-hour matches, and that the team has to win four matches at least to be qualified to the second round and to reach the final debate.

Yassin pointed out that the Syrian team doesn’t know the identity of the counterpart team facing it except one hour before the match appointment, adding that the same thing happens to setting the controversial sentence around which the match would run.

The Syrian team consists of students Ibrahim al-Kasir, Karla Armoush, Naya Kayali, Yasmin Hatem and Elma Meidani, in addition to the coach Yahya Samoun.

The debates are based on the principle of competition between the two teams in each debate, with one team arguing for the topic through debate and the other arguing against it regardless of the personal opinions of the competitors.

Each debate consists of three speeches about a controversial sentence focusing on a particular issue, and every speaker speaks for 4 minutes, then each team provides a retort for 3 minutes before the final speech by the team that supports the subject of the debate.

Nisreen Othman/Hala Zain