Andrew Wildes, Gleaner Writer
A march pass of some of the schools participating in the 19th season of the Junior Debate International Competition for primary and preparatory schools. The opening ceremony was held yesterday at the Jamaica Conference Centre, downtown Kingston. Junior Dowie/Staff Photographer
OVER A hundred students, from eight parishes and 32 preparatory and primary schools from across the country, gathered for the 19th staging of the annual Junior Debate International Competition at the Jamaica Conference Centre, downtown Kingston yesterday.
As the students and teachers clapped and cheered at the posited arguments and waited on the deliberations of the judges, there was no mistaking the excitement that filled the air. When the decision did come and St. Jago Cathedral Preparatory was champion, it was plainly to the crowd's delight.
Fortunately, for Holy Childhood Preparatory and all the other schools this was only the first match in what is set to be an exciting competition.
The wit and charm of St. Jago's young Cody Dajoo was well received by the crowd and simply irresistible to the judges who gave him Best Speaker. Arguing against the moot 'Wearing Uniforms Should Be Optional', throwing his whole body into his argument, Cody made it clear that "with so much lawlessness going on in the society we need to hold on to the incy winsy bit of order we have left." After laying his argument's foundation, the young debater made his closing argument in a song to the tune of Baby Chams' popular Ghetto Story.
"I'm very excited," said 10-year-old Cody. "It's my first time on the debating team and I'm getting best speaker - that's exciting," he said. Renee Pennant and Johann Morgan were the team's first and last speaker.
LITERACY DEVELOPMENT
Function chairman and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Educational Studies at the University of the West Indies, Dr. Josette Smikle, was quick to focus the purpose of the competition and its role in national literacy development.
"I would like us to celebrate this event in the context of what it has been doing for
literacy development in Jamaica," stated Dr. Smikle. "The competition's theme this year is 'Knowledge is Power' and when a person is literate he or she has the power not only to read the words, but to read the world," she said.
