World Schools Debating Championship to get
In 2010, a younger Kithmina Hewage found himself being a proud member of the Sri Lankan National Debating team, which for the first time in the country’s debating history, managed to break into the Octo-Final round of the World Schools Debating Championship (WSDC).
Fast forward eight years ahead and today, he sits as a Co- Convenor of the WSDC 2019, as Sri Lanka prepares to be the first South Asian country to host the tournament. Alongside Kithmina is Manisha Dissanayake and Tamara Fernando, who are also CoConvenors of WSDC 2019, and Meghal Perera, the President of the Debaters Council of Sri Lanka.
“My experience, participating in the championship in 2010 was simply mind blowing,” Kithmina shares, adding that the standard of debating at the time was high. But fortunately they trained under exceptional coaches for almost a year, which helped tremendously.
Since then the Sri Lankan team has also managed to achieve the same feat in 2016 and 2017. And in terms of talent, Kithmina strongly feels the Sri Lankan debaters are as talented as anyone else. However, he maintains that “it’s just that the technical aspect of it comes with exposure. And that is a critical point which determines outcome of a knockout round.” He believes that one of the main advantages of a tournament of this standard, coming to the island is that the exposure gained by it will be highly beneficial to the younger generations. “You tend to pick up small things such as the mannerisms and how to structure arguments etc.”
Just last week, the Council called for a media briefing to announce the Championship which is scheduled to take place from July 23 to August 2, 2019. Addressing those present, Tamara explains that what makes this debating tournament different from the others is