For some teenagers, debating is their way of exploring new horizons and experiences beyond the classroom.
With a passion for the ‘art of convincing’, higher-secondary students from 32 schools participated in the two-day inter-school debating competition, ‘Battle On’, organised at Lady Andal Venkatasubba Rao School.
The venue resonated with loud cheers as teams from P.S.B.B. School, K.K. Nagar, and Bhavan’s Rajaji Vidyashram battled it out for over an hour in the concluding phase of the competition on Wednesday.
The audience shot questions at the participants as they presented their views on the need for restructuring the UN Security Council.
For Ishita M. and Srivatsan M. of Rajaji Vidyashram, debates mean researching current topics, and updating themselves on various international issues.
For C.K. Sashankh of P.S.B.B., K.K. Nagar, his love for debating has led him to compete in international debating championships. His teammate Shivshankar Ganesh says debates offer him an opportunity to organise his thoughts on a particular issue and go beyond academics.
The team from P.S.B.B. emerged winners in the competition. Nivedita Arvind, cultural secretary of Lady Andal School, says: “We have been organising debates for the past four years. It helps us understand issues and develop skills to organise events ourselves.”
