In a "clean sweep" of the country’s college-level debate circuit, Qatar Foundation (QF) partner Georgetown University in Qatar’s (GU-Q) student debate team has been crowned the winner of both the Qatar Universities Debate League (QUDL) and Qatar Universities Nationals Debate Tournament for the 2020-2021 season, as well as clinching the Best Speaker Award at both events and several other awards.
QatarDebate, a member of QF, organises a series of league events and a national championship tournament for university students, who compete with each other throughout the year for the chance to win the league title and the national championship title.
At the Qatar Universities Debate League spread across four tournaments, the GU-Q debate team was cumulatively ranked the highest and won the league as a whole. The team also clinched victory at the Nationals tournament that followed, GU-Q said in a statement.
Out of the three teams in the finals, three represented GU-Q.
The dean of GU-Q, Dr Ahmad Dallal, said: “Congratulations to the GU-Q debate team for winning the QUDL Nationals and taking many top spots. Student champions such as Al Alanoud al-Thani (GU-Q’24) and Adrian Lopes (GU-Q’24) and League and National debate best speaker Pragyan Acharya (GU-Q’24) are great examples of the kind of skills that are honed daily in the classroom and make for great success in the global arena of dialogue and debate.”
The GU-Q team of highly skilled debaters was led by this year’s new captain, first-year student Pragyan Acharya, who won Best Speaker in both the Nationals Tournament and the Debate League. “Despite being a relatively young team, several first year students were recognized in the top ten Best Speakers awards, in both the novice and overall categories. That is a very promising sign for next year’s debate season,” he said.
In high school, Pragyam debated for and now coaches the Nepali national team, and applied to GU-Q to study political science. “I had already heard about Qatar Debate and the general support for competitive debating at GU-Q, plus it's a great university not far from home. I decided to apply because I would get that experience, that diversity and the financial support.”
As the team captain, Pragyan is tasked with organising weekly training, where he also creates and delivers workshops and practise debates. While the season has ended, Pragyan hopes the team has the opportunity to test their skills against the world’s best debaters by taking part in more international events. “Next year, we hope to grow as a team, and continue improving our skills. At the end of the day, debate isn’t one dimensional, it’s a sport.”
