Budo are debate kings

It was a fairly tense atmosphere in the August house on Thursday. Arguments were flowing back and forth in Conference room A. But this was not another controversial bill being discussed. These were students debating during the finals of the National Debate Championships. They argued, one would say, far much better than some legislators. The motion was “The Youth need more leaders in Parliament for effective representation.”

Kings College Budo’s William Musoke argued that youth MPs are just seated idle and comfortably in Parliament and do not know what the youth want. Instead they are there to quench their thirst and greed for money.

“It is even worse because we do not vote them so they are not accountable to anyone. The youths should just instead be given a chance to participate more actively in politics,” he said.
However Mbarara High’s Onesimus Mwesigwa insisted that maybe with more numbers, the youth will be better represented. This went on and on and on. But a winner had to emerge and in the end, Kings College Budo took the prize.

Organised by National Debate Council of Uganda (NDCU), the championships which started in August at the regional level had schools from five regions competing.
In the central region, Bishop Cyprian Kihangire SSS (BCK) took the day. In the western region, it was Mbarara High (last year’s winners) and in West Nile Mvara SSS won. St. Joseph’s College Layibi won in the north.

The schools then saw their way to the final National Debate Championship. However, rather than take the top five that had won in the regions, five best schools from each of the participating regions were given a chance to be part of the debate.

Some of the schools that won at the regional level thought this was unfair.

“We expected to compete with around five schools from all over the country, one from each region and we thought others would be commentators but to our surprise we have competed with over 30 schools and those that we won, like Budo during the regional level have won us,” Mr Charles Rubongoya the coach and debate patron for BCK said.
However one of the organisers Mr Edgar Kangere said that this was not a game played to make losers win, but a decision made to ensure that each of the best five schools from the five regions got a chance to try their luck.

“We wanted to be fair to all the schools that struggled and got to the quarter finals, semi finals and finals in each of the region so we brought all of them to compete for the national championship. If we were unfair, Mbarara High would not have won again to get to the finals for the national championship since they won the regionals,” he said.
Debating had been seen as one of those co-curricular activities that were dying in schools but students are now glad that NDCU has revived it and made as important as other school activity such as sports.