Education minister attends Qatar-Singapore debate

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HE Saad Bin Ibrahim Al Mahmoud, the Minister of Education attended a debate held on Thursday, February 18, 2010 between Qatar and Singapore at Abu Bakr Aseedeq Independent School for Boys. The debate was part of the World Schools Debating Championships held in Doha between February 9-18, 2010. The debate revolved around women rights and giving women quotas in parliament. Singapore won the competition.

Considered the biggest of its kind, the World Schools Debating Championships embraced 57 countries from around the world and was held in the Arab region for the first time.

The World Schools Debating Championships (WSDC) (www.schoolsdebate.com) is a global competition for high school debaters. The first World Schools Debating Championships were held in Australia in 1988. The event attracted participants from Australia, Canada, England, Hong Kong, New Zealand and the United States. In 1990 the second championship was held in Canada and has since been an annual event hosted in a different country each year. Recent venues include Calgary, Cardiff, Seoul, Washington DC, and Athens in 2009 .

Participating teams are made up of the nation's top five debaters, often selected after a long series of local, regional, and national debate events. The World Schools Debating Championships celebrates and exemplifies the achievements of youth in the global community who strive to make the world a better place through open articulate communication and shared experiences.

Aims of WSDC

• To achieve excellence in debating

• To encourage debating throughout the world

• To promote international understanding

• To promote free speech

In order to further these aims, all participating nations agree that:

• The team of any participating nation may be required to debate any issue

• The team of any participating nation may be required to debate against the team of any other participating nation

• The team of any participating nation is entitled to take part in the Championships on the same basis as any other participating nation's team

Rules and Guides
All debates take place in English. Each country can submit a squad of 3-5 students who are over 14 and under the age of 19 as of February 9, 2010 to debate social, moral and political issues. The debators must either be current secondary school-level students, or have graduated from a secondary school no more than 6 months before the championships begin. If they have already graduated, they must not be registered for a tertiary-level education course which begins on or before the opening day of the championships.