Eight school debaters bound for Peru

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Eight high school students from across the archipelago have been selected to represent Indonesia in the World Schools Debating Championship in Lima, Peru, in August.

The eight went through three grueling rounds of competition along with 16 others on Wednesday during a selection process organized jointly by the Ministry of National Education and the Association of Critical Thinking (ACT).

The eight selected were Putu Sanjaya of SMU Kolese Kanisius Jakarta, Ziarini Zaki of Al Azhar BSD in Tangerang (Banten), Juris Tan of SMUK 1 Jakarta, Aditya Damasurya of SMUN 1 Surakarta (Central Java), Mahardika Sadjad of SMUN 17 Makassar (South Sulawesi), Nidya Hapsari of SMUN Bandar Lampung (Lampung), Siti Astrid Kusumawardhani of Al Izhar Jakarta and Sahil Kush Mahtani of Sekolah Pelita Harapan, Tangerang (Banten).

The winners were announced during a dinner at the MidPlaza Intercontinental Hotel in Jakarta, capping a week of competitions of debating in English at senior high school level.

Hariati, a teacher of SMUK Petra in Surabaya (East Java) earned a ticket to Peru after she was selected as the best juror of the entire tournament.

On Monday, Sekolah Pelita Harapan of Tangerang (Banten) took away the title of the 2003 National School Debating Championships, beating SMUN 34 of Jakarta. The trio of Sahil Kush Mahtani, Natasha Jaya and Vanessa Budiharja clinched the title after successfully defeating the motion that "provincial government officials should be native to that province".

Ziarini Zaki of Al Azhar BSD in Tangerang was voted best speaker of the entire tournament.

ACT is a non-profit organization formed by young people who pioneered the English debate tradition in Indonesia. It has organized various debating championships both at university and school levels.

"Now we have to coach the eight selected for Peru," a senior ACT member said of its task ahead.