Reading, vital key to winning debating contest
M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
There probably are not many youngsters in Indonesia who spend their youth digesting Salman Rushdie's The Midnight Children, Isabelle Allende's The House of the Spirits or Gabriel Marcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. But this was what it took to become the Indonesian school debating contest champions.
Reading the works of some of the world's great writers and submitting regular literary reviews was part of the preparations undertaken by Natasha Djaja, Vanessa Budiharja and Sahil Kush Mahtani from the private Sekolah Pelita Harapan (SPH) high school, who won the 2003 National School Debating Championship.
They took home the first prize by defeating Intan Haddijah, Richard Anggoro and Tirza Reinata from state-run SMU 34 high school after over an hour of fierce debating.
The motion they debated in the final round was whether or not provincial government officials should be natives of the areas they serve.
In the previous rounds, the contestants debated motions -- revealed 30 minutes before the debate started -- ranging from quotas for women in the legislature and whether the government should stop sending workers abroad, to whether the government should provide former athletes pensions upon their retirement. To excel in this event the contestants had to be knowledgeable about current affairs.
Thirty-two teams from 19 provinces took part in the championship, which ran from April 11 to April 16. The eight best individual speakers were selected as candidates for the Indonesian team that will take part in the 2003 World Schools Debating Championship in Lima, Peru.
"Apart from reading such works of fiction, we also had to be knowledgeable about larger-than-life topics such as democracy, free will and human rights," Sahil told The Jakarta Post.
He said these kinds of topics were regularly discussed within a debating circle at SPH.
"In this debating club, some of our eighth and ninth graders are already well versed in those issues and able to engage in a debate," he said, adding that he sometimes coached the club.
English is no longer a handicap for Sahil because at SPH all subjects are taught in the language.
He said that although he is not a native speaker, English is his first language at home.
One of the candidates for the world championships in Peru, Aditya Damasurya of SMUN 1 in Surakarta, Central Java, also had to get used to English as a first language.
"I spent four years of my childhood in Australia, from age three to seven," he said in Bahasa Indonesia with a thick Javanese accent, as if to disaffirm the Australian accent he put on during the debating contest.
Aditya said that to sharpen his English skills he has taken a language class since his first year in junior high school.
Vanessa of SPH, a native of Jakarta, said she had studied English since she was young.
"I started to speak in English when I was a first grader at Sekolah Pelita Harapan," she said.
At home, she has to abide by a rule from her father that English is their only means of communication.
"My father won't speak to me if I don't use English in our daily conversation," she told the Post.
Winners of the 2003 National School Debating Championship April 11 to April 16, 2003
Top Team: Sekolah Pelita Harapan (Natasha Djaja, Sahil Kush Mahtani, Vanessa Budiharja).
Runner-Up Team: SMUN 34 Jakarta (Intan Haddijah, Richard Anggoro, Tirza Reinata).
Best Speakers and candidates for world championships in Peru: Ziarini Zaki (Al Azhar BSD, Banten Province), Putu Sanjaya (SMU Kolese Kanisius, Jakarta), Juris Tan (SMUK 1 Jakarta), Aditya Damasurya (SMUN 1 Surakarta, Central Java), Mahardika Sadjad (SMUN 17 Makassar, South Sulawesi), Nidya Hapsari (SMUN Bandar Lampung, Lampung), Siti Astrid Kusumawardhani (Al Izhar Jakarta), Sahil Kush Mahtani (Sekolah Pelita Harapan, Banten Province).