Winning smiles: (from left) Sim, Lee, Arjun, Umar and Teioh.
Team Malaysia made the nation doubly proud by bagging the “Best English as a Second Language” Team Award at the recent World Schools Debating Championships (WSDC).
Arjun Gunalan, Teioh Nuan Ning, Umar Fazlan Azri, Lee Yao Ming and Sim Yang Ming, who represented the country, also made history by reaching the semifinals of the prestigious global debating championships.
While Team Malaysia has consistently ranked in the world’s Top Eight from 2020 to 2022, the furthest that Team Malaysia had progressed to prior to this year was the quarterfinals in 2015, 2020, 2021 and 2022.
This year’s number four ranking was the highest that Team Malaysia has achieved in our nation’s history.
Held from July 18 to 28 at VinUniversity, Hanoi, Vietnam, the WSDC was for students aged 14 to 19.
This year’s edition of the WSDC marked the first in-person competition since the Covid-19 pandemic pushed the last three editions into virtual platforms.
It was also the largest WSDC ever hosted with 64 nations competing from six continents. Each country could only send a team of five talents to the competition.
In reaching the semifinals, Team Malaysia was also the only non-Western and non-native English team left standing, eventually losing out to Team USA, which was crowned “World Champion”, a press release from the Malaysian World Schools Debate Education Society (MWSDES) read.
“What we achieved here was years in the making.
This was the second and third attempt for many of our team members and it’s no exaggeration to say that they had put in thousands of hours in order to break this record.
“They have trailblazed a path for our future debaters. We are aiming for the gold and what this year has proven to us is that determination, discipline and hard work do pay off.
“We are committed towards the expansion of debate education among students in Malaysia.
While we regularly host competitions and workshops, we are now expanding with online debate and speech training to further nurture young talents in our country,” said Team Malaysia head coach Mai Mokhsein.
