Students aim high to improve as debaters

Eva C. Komandjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesia's bid to improve its performance in international student debating competitions has received a boost with the help of trainers from Monash University.

Around 100 students from various universities across the country participated in a four-day workshop organized by the University of Indonesia, which concluded on Saturday.

"We invited debaters from Monash University who have won many international competitions to improve the skills of Indonesian students," Melanie Tedja, chairperson of the National Workshop Parliamentary Debate (NWPD) organizing committee, said.

The workshop was sponsored by, among others, The Jakarta Post.

Melanie said so far Indonesian teams had never won any laurels in international competition, although technically their skills were relatively equal to those of other Asian countries such as Japan or Thailand.

"In Asia, we fare quite well, although we are still behind our Southeast Asian neighbors like Singapore or Malaysia," she said.

In the latest world debate competition in Singapore last year, Indonesia ranked among the best 32 teams among over 100 participating countries.

Melanie said the workshop would help Indonesian students improve their achievement in a number of competitions this year, the closest being the Asian debate competition in Thailand in June. Indonesia will also take part in the Australia-Asia Pacific debate competition in Australia in July and the World Debate Competition in December.

"We hope we can reach the final 32 in the Australia-Asia Pacific and world debate competitions in the English as a Second Language (ESL) category," said Melanie.

She said Indonesia would bid to host an international debate competition in 2006, in an attempt to help more talented young debaters in the country to flourish.