I consider students’ active participation in debates as a good strategy that schools should adopt to empower young people with many important skills that adequately prepare them for adult responsibilities. Ideally, all schools should have vibrant debate clubs. There are quite a number of schools in this country that have always featured prominently in inter-school debates but others do not seem to be involving learners adequately in this activity. I think we should promote debates in all schools as part of the co-curricular activities.

I would like to commend Rwanda Development Board and other non-government organisations like iDebate, for sponsoring inter-schools debates over the years. It is a good thing to inspire young people to love debate. By recognising all the participating schools with certificates and awarding accolades to the best debaters, they have been able to inspire many students to participate.

Debates help students to develop research skills because they realise that without doing adequate research on the set topics, they cannot manage to challenge their opponents and convince the judges about their points of view. Judges always expect participants to present strong arguments which are backed up by facts and figures. This compels participants to look for information from resourceful people, newspapers, journals, magazines and the Internet. By the time a given participant appears for a debate, he is able to argue his case and refute the opponents’ points with confidence. Even if his side does not win, the individual becomes more knowledgeable about a given topic and he develops good research skills which help him in the other subjects.

Debates equip learners with good communication skills because the more they debate, the better they become in speaking English. Many students face a challenge of not being able to express themselves effectively yet they study the subject intensively. One of the major causes of this undesirable situation is failure of the English Language teachers to create a platform for students to practice speaking English. We should not expect our learners to speak good English if we do not involve them in debates. Debates require participants to think fast and speak clearly in order to convince the judges and the situation gets hotter when the participants engage each other in crossfire by punching holes in their opponents’ points and this is a perfect way of developing the speaking skill.

When learners participate in debates regularly, they develop analytical skills which many employers expect from job applicants. Debates enable learners to look at issues from different perspectives at the preparatory stage in order to come up with strong arguments that can help them to win. For instance, the forthcoming RDB sponsored inter-university debate requires the participants to analyse issues regarding governance and this implies that they have to look at governance from various perspectives. This theme will help them to understand what governance is all about and they will be able to suggest solutions to the problems associated with it. We rarely test analysis in the written examinations. Therefore, debates can help us to develop this importantskill among learners.

Another important aspect that learners develop through debate is self-esteem. Some of them fear to express themselves in public most especially in the English Language. Such students have low opinion of themselves. This occurs as a result of teachers not creating for them various opportunities to express their views in public. I have observed that there are students who can write well in English but they are too timid to speak. This clearly indicate that they may have knowledge of basic grammar and structure but they lack confidence to speak. Teachers should bridge up this gap by conducting regular debates to build confidence in the learners.

How can we make debates popular?

The first thing that school administrators should do is to put debates on the school programme by allocating one afternoon per week for school debates. Some of them may challenge this idea on grounds that it encroaches on the limited time available for lessons but why should we have lessons running throughout the week without giving learners a chance to apply what they study in the various subjects through debate?

We should realise that debates play an integral part in the curriculum because debate topics can be adopted from most of the subjects taught. For instance, what is taught in Economics may provide an appropriate topic for a school debate so that learners are compelled to do more research in Economics and apply knowledge thereby deepening their understanding of what they learnt in class.

There can be various levels of competition depending on the topics. There can be class debates where English Language teachers once in a while divide their classes into two opposing sides. They can also conduct inter-class and inter-level debates.

We should know that debates are very exciting to learners and if we promote them, we will be able to produce young people with good skills in communication, critical analysis and research, and the employers will always get skillful applicants.

The writer is an English Language Instructor