Bishop Cotton School hosts annual debates for students

A lively debate on “Money spent on space exploration can be better used on reducing poverty on earth” saw La Martinieres Girls College, Lucknow, winning the trophy at the 23rd Dr Samuel Slater Memorial Invitational Inter-school English Debates held at Bishop Cotton School.

The prestigious debate that attracts participation from renowned public schools of the country concluded at Bishop Cotton School, who are the hosts every year. Despite the team from La Martinieres Boys, Lucknow, giving a tough fight to La Martinieres Girls College, Lucknow, the girls outshone the boys, winning the trophy.

A total of 12 teams including La Martiniere Boys College, Lucknow, Doon School, Dehradun, St James School, Kolkata, La Martiniere Girls College, Kolkata, La Martiniere Girls College, Lucknow,  RIMC, Dehradun, Pinegrove School and locals schools, Auckland House School, Chapslee School, St Edwards School and the host Bishop Cotton School, with two teams, participated in the debates.

 The La Martinieres Boys, Lucknow, team, who spoke for the motion included Vignesh Mehrotra, Aman Agarwal, Arnav Gurnani and Naman Mishra. The girls’ team from La Martinieres Girls College, Lucknow, included Vasundhara Prasad, Medha Raje Singh, Kriti Ghai and Kashish Gupta. 

Among the overall individual positions, Vasundhara Prasad (La Martinieres Girls College, Lucknow) was placed first, Kriti Ghai (La Martinieres Girls College, Lucknow) was second and the third position was won by Vignesh Mehrotra  (La Martinieres Boys, Lucknow). 

The most promising speaker award went to Vasundhara Prasad, the overall best speaker award was won by Vignesh Mehrotra and the award for courage in the face of adversity was awarded to Ishani Sharma, Auckland House School, Shimla. 

It was in 1995, after 136 years of existence of the Bishop Cotton School, it was under the headmastership of  Kabir K Mustafi, that the need was felt to bring about an inter-public school debating exchange to facilitate friendship, exchange of views and ideas. The event would also help foster student interaction, so that they could gather and debate in a friendly and competitive spirit.

The event is aimed at providing a significant training ground for the development of communicative abilities of students and to create learning opportunities in which students develop proficiencies based on sound educational and communication theories.      

The format of the debates was set on the Cambridge Pattern (three speakers for, and three speakers against) to generate a healthy debate on certain prevalent issues faced by our country. As many as 19 topics were placed before the participants from abstract to the topical and the result was a revealing relevance of the topics in the lives of children. —TNS