Students aim high to improve as debaters

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.