The World Schools Debating Championship (WSDC) is the world cup of school debating. Every year, countries from all over the world pit their best debaters to this competition, to represent their nation’s flag on the international stage. Since 2006, a team from Bangladesh has been participating in this tournament. This year, the competition was hosted by Croatia, from 17 July to 26 July. And as per tradition, after a rigorous selection process, five debaters amongst hundreds were selected for representing Bangladesh at the Worlds Schools Debating Championship in Zagreb, Croatia.
It has always been a challenge for Team Bangladesh to represent the country on international grounds at debating competitions owing to the lack of funds, however, this year has been an exception with the financial support from Independent University of Bangladesh (IUB) who has made it possible for Team Bangladesh to travel to Croatia and fulfill their dreams. In this year’s edition, for the first time since 2006, Team Bangladesh qualified for the knock out phase of this tournament by ranking 7th in the preliminary rounds amongst all the debating nations. They further made history by making it to the quarterfinals of the tournament, where they got knocked out by Team India in 6-1 split decision. This year’s team consisted of Jubayer Ibn Hamid (Scholastica Mirpur), Bishal Podder (Sunnydale), Debojyoti Biswas (Sunnydale), Sreyan Kanungo (European Standard School) and Towseef Hossain (European Standard School). Sreyan Kanungo was ranked as the 10th best in the English as a second language (ESL) category, a title that no Bangladeshi debater has achieved before- marking a monumental success for Bangladesh.
A three-time WSDC alumni Jubayer Ibn Hamid said, “I am grateful to the entire Bangladeshi debating community for always supporting us in every possible way. This was an incredible journey for us, and we could almost hear the cheers from back home. We, as a team, would also like to thank Independent University Bangladesh for sponsoring us at a time when we need the institutional support the most.”
After two Asian championships and a Worlds Universities Debating Championship (WUDC) Open Quarterfinals, this is another milestone in Bangladesh Debating Circuit which has given the nation a lot of reasons to be proud. It has been a good year for Bangladesh regarding its debating success and hopefully, the years to come will be of no exception.
The writer is a final year student of BBA programme at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), University of Dhaka. He can be reached at [email protected]
