UNAIR NEWS – UKM Airlangga Debate Society (ADS) won 2nd place in the British Parliamentary English Debate Competition (BAWOR) competition. They also won the title of Best Varsity Speaker in the national event that took place May 11-14 at the University of Surabaya (UBAYA).

The national novice competition open for high schools and universities was participated by Devi Salsabila (Law) and Olivia Firsta Flora Cantika (International Relations) as debaters, and Alif Widyaningrum (Management) Girls as N1 adjudicators or representative who were included to be the jury .

“The position of the adjudicator is very important because without one we cannot pass the elimination round,” said Devi.

Devi added that this debate competition was a stepping stone for the next competition in August, namely NUDC ( National University Debating Championship) organized by Directorate of Student Learning (Belmawa) Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education (Ristekdikti).

Devi admitted, initially, she and her team were hesitant to follow this debate competition. “We followed competitions two week in a row. We actually want to rest a bit. But the coach’s encouragement made us follow this BAWOR, “he said.

Before the competition, continued Devi, there was no special preparation. Preparations have been made intensively since March 2018 for the preparation of other competitions.

Intensive training since March was done with the direct debate practice where the opponents can be seniors in UKM, other university students, as well as inviting experienced coach debaters. In this competition, the coach that helped them was Rizqi, an alumni of International Relations, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Gadjah Mada University.

“Our exercise includes regular news updates on some websites as the topic of the debate contest was broad. The difficulties we experienced during preparation were the adjustment of schedules, as well as the psychological burden in the competition, ” she explained.

The 4 preliminary rounds from about 30 teams became 8 teams to the final, the competition ran quite conducively. According to Devi, no significant circumstances affect the performance at the time.

At the beginning, expectations were not too high. But in fact, they made it to the final round until finally get the 2nd winner. It was very memorable and fun for them.

The next plan is to conduct a series of training and other competitions for the upcoming August event. UNAIR as a representative of Kopertis 7 already entered the selection in early May.

“Of course we are not satisfied quickly, we continue to practice, and learn from mistakes and made post-competition evaluation so that weakness can be overcome, ” said Devi. (*)

Author: Hilmi Putra Pradana

Editor: Binti Q. Masruroh