MEXICO CITY - Three Pakistani students from Karachi and Lahore have won an international debating competition. Team Pakistan beat students from South Korea and all three participants were listed amongst the top 10 speakers of the tournament.
The fifteen year old students won the final of The Karl Popper Debating Championship (KPDC) which is one of the largest tournaments of its kind.
Pakistan’s team was defending the topic “Guantanamo Bay prison should be closed down immediately” in the KPDC finals while Korean team had to prove that the motion should not be adopted.
The team included Zainab Hameed from Karachi Grammar School who was named the top speaker, while Azeem Liaqat from Salamat International Campus for Advanced Studies in Lahore placed second. Pakistan’s third contestant Ahmed Shujaan from Aitchison College Lahore placed fifth. 45 countries and over 200 debaters participated in the tournament.
The teams participated in two competitions – the KPDC and the mixed team track. In the former, they represented Pakistan as a team while they were split up and paired with debaters from other countries in the mixed team track.