Chulalongkorn debate team wins grand prize in national contest

             Students from Chulalongkorn University ’s Debating Society won the trophy in the 6^th National Debate Competition (English language) for three consecutive years. The recently-held debate was under the theme “bio-diversity”, and was aimed to instill Thai youth with environmental preservation awareness, in line with ASEAN Environment Year 2006.

             A team of 3 students comprised 3^rd-year Law students, Weerapat Pariyawong and Chutinan Chutima, and 2^nd-year Economics student, Puripat Jantawarin. They competed with representatives from 13 major universities. After each team presenting their cases in topics such as fuel energy, green-house effect and Bangkok traffic problems, a panel of honorable judges whose specializations were debating and environmental issues would give them scores on their language skills, gestures, content, information arrangement, and how the team countered others’ remark.

             The winning team said they had been fully prepared for this contest by gathering relevant information and planning strategies to prevail other teams because the contest imitated the Congress debate, where representatives argue based on logics, and backed up their claims with law, theories and statistics.

                  In the final round, the Chulalongkorn team met with representatives from Mahidol University ’s International College , and they debated on the topic “This House believes that GMOs are the enemy of biodiversity”. The team said their victory stemmed from their excellent coordination and the adaptation of their predecessors’ experience. More importantly, they received good advice from their trainers, Assistant Professor Piyanart Faktongpan and Ajarn James Haft. In addition, Weerapat also won the Best Speaker of the Tournament prize.

 The winning team added that the debate contest gave them a great experience in using reasons and facts to counter the others and in how to solve crises by debating, which is a tradition that Thailand lacked.

Assistant Professor Piyanart Faktongpan, who is the Public Relation Director of the Language Institute and the team’s advisor, said that although debate is an extra-curriculum activity, it helps the university to create graduates with skills in critical and synthetic thinking, as well as systematic articulation and persuasion in expressing their opinions to the public. Furthermore, she believed that the activity has built up a leadership network for the university in the future.

 The Debating Society is to enter the “American and the World” debate, hosted by Chulalongkorn University and supported by the Asia Foundation.

12 september 2006