English Debate Society (EDS) team from Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) has become the champion of the national Indonesian Varsity English Debate (IVED) 2017, held at Universitas Sanata Dharma Yogyakarta from 13-17 January.
They also won all other awards, which are best speaker and best reply speaker.
As many as 46 teams from Indonesian universities joined the competition, which include Universitas Hasanuddin, Universitas Indonesia, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Universitas Pelita Harapan, Universitas Bina Nusantara, Perguruan Tinggi Teknokrat, and Institut Teknologi Bandung.
Noel Hasintongan, one of the members of EDS UGM team, said UGM sent up to three teams to this competition. The first team has members Dhanny Lazuardi and Rizqi Isnurhadi who are International Relations students. The second team consists of Syagung Gunawan (Law), Nadhif Aqliandhana (International Relations), and Sandy Sanjaya (Nuclear Engineering). The third team consists of Rahma Hanum Amalia (Law), and Firstollia and Haikal Satria (Economic and Business). The first team went through to the finals while the rest made it to the quarter finals and semifinals.
“In the final round we meet the ITB team where we were given a motion on social movement,” said Noel on Wednesday (18/1) at UGM.
Noel explained they had to undergo a series of tight selections through six phases of pre-elimination, quarter-finals, semi-finals, and finals.
“In the competition we competed on several themes, such as law, economy, social affairs, international relations, and recent issues,” he said.
“(We were) excited and proud, now we won the championship after last becoming the champion in the IVED back in 2014,” Rizqi added.
Their success was thanks to the intensive practise they had done in the past month. “We practised the debate on a number of motions and we shared information on recent issues,” said Rizqi.
Sry Hardini Puteri, one of the EDS trainers, said the teams that represented UGM at the IVED had been selected through a rigorous selection in four rounds of debate. “Of the six rounds, nine people with highest scores were selected to represent EDS UGM at IVED,” she said.
Sry said she was proud that their teams had performed optimally, even winning all the awards. She hoped in the future the EDS UGM team would be able to make achievements in various national and international competitions.
“We would like to ask for your support in order that the EDS UGM would make better achievements in the national and global levels,” she concluded.