San Fernando Central wins Victoria Inter-School debate championship

Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­[email protected]

San Fer­nan­do Cen­tral Sec­ondary emerged as the over­all win­ner af­ter out­per­form­ing sev­en oth­er schools in the Vic­to­ria Ed­u­ca­tion Dis­trict In­ter-School de­bate at St Joseph’s Con­vent in San Fer­nan­do last Wednes­day.

The win­ning team, which faced off against St Joseph’s Con­vent, ex­pert­ly tack­led the mo­tion “The SEA Ex­am­i­na­tion has Out­lived its Rel­e­vance in Mod­ern Ed­u­ca­tion,” de­liv­er­ing com­pelling ar­gu­ments that im­pressed the judges to se­cure the school’s place as dis­trict cham­pi­ons.

The team mem­bers were Sian Singh, Amelia Guer­ra, Ja­da John and Nata­nia Thomp­son.

Fo­cus­ing on three main points, stu­dent Sian Singh ar­gued that the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am­i­na­tion is used as a high-stakes in­stru­ment to place stu­dents in­to sec­ondary schools.

Sec­ond­ly, she said SEA cre­ates a nar­row mea­sure of stu­dents’ achieve­ments, and third­ly, SEA cre­ates psy­cho­log­i­cal trau­ma.

She ar­gued, “SEA caus­es wor­ry over what can af­fect the next sev­en years of our lives. SEA is ex­ces­sive stress. We all know how many stu­dents suf­fer from anx­i­ety. My es­teemed judges, a sys­tem that heav­i­ly re­lies on a sin­gle ex­am­i­na­tion fails to as­sess many es­sen­tial mod­ern skills and places enor­mous pres­sure on chil­dren at such a young age has clear­ly out­lived its rel­e­vance.”

Chris­tine Lakhan-Mootoo, com­mit­tee chair­man, ex­plained that they start­ed the ini­tia­tive to fos­ter a spir­it of healthy com­pe­ti­tion among stu­dents in the Vic­to­ria Dis­trict area, but they are hop­ing to ex­pand to oth­er dis­tricts as the com­pe­ti­tion and com­mit­tee grow.

“We’re al­so hop­ing that we, in the fu­ture, would re­ceive some spon­sor­ship to help ex­pand the com­pe­ti­tion,” said Lakhan-Mootoo.

Held un­der the theme, Em­pow­er­ing Voic­es of Our Fu­ture Lead­ers, the event saw La Ro­maine Sec­ondary emerg­ing vic­to­ri­ous over AS­JA Girls’ Col­lege on the mo­tion, “The Sin­gle-Sex School Struc­ture Bet­ter Sup­ports Stu­dent Aca­d­e­m­ic Achieve­ment.”

Na­pari­ma Col­lege took on Mara­bel­la South Sec­ondary, win­ning the de­bate on the mo­tion “A Four-day School Week will Bet­ter Meet The Needs of Stu­dents.”

Mara­bel­la North Sec­ondary won over Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege on the mo­tion “Com­mu­ni­ty Ser­vice Should be made a Manda­to­ry Com­po­nent of the Sec­ondary School Cur­ricu­lum in T&T.”

In­di­vid­ual awards were al­so dis­trib­uted in var­i­ous cat­e­gories.

Josh Han­sraj of Na­pari­ma Col­lege was named Best Open­ing Speak­er, Kay-Lei-Joi Ram­sumair earned Best Re­but­tal and Ke­shawn Bap­tiste of Mara­bel­la North Sec­ondary was award­ed Best Sum­ma­ry Speak­er.