On Wednesday 12 College students competed in the first round of the Northern Rivers Interschool Debating Competition. The competition, which was held at Kyabram P-12 this year, has run for many years and includes schools right across Northern Victoria.
Echuca College was able to field four teams in the competition; a senior team (years 11 and 12), two intermediate teams (years 9 and 10) and a junior team (years 7 and 8). All Echuca College teams performed excellently winning at least one of their debates in each age group.
The junior team of Reece Campbell, Leah Kempster and Brianna Creed had a successful initiation into debating winning their first debate over Kyabram P-12. The group was able to successfully argue the affirmative case for the prompt “Facebook’s age policy should be strictly enforced”. This was a great result for the Echuca College students as the team had never been involved in a debate before. They went through to the finals where they just missed out on winning again by a very small margin.
The Intermediate teams performed very well both debating “Euthanasia should be legalised in Australia” with one side on the negative and one side on the affirmative. In the second round they found themselves in the unique position of having an Echuca College verses Echuca College debate over Australia’s boat people policy. In this debate Team one consisting of Bethany Young, Sarah Hercott and Sarah Kaddissi went down in a closely fought debate to team two consisting of Jason Hanson, Zali McKee and Courtney Johnson.
Echuca College’s senior team was successful in reaching the next level with a tight win in the finals over the Kyabram team. The team was able to successfully argue that the new HECS conditions are wrong for Australia’s students. The girls, Georgia Harris, Jess Hardess and Tegan Milne will now have to wait to find out who they are up against when the other region’s heat is finished.
