A New Round of Palestinian National Debate Championship 2015

A New Round of
 Palestinian National Debate Championship 2015

AFKAR for Educational & Cultural Development has Launched the new round of the Palestinian National Debate Championship for the year 2015. This event is always implemented in partnership with the Ministry of Education & Higher Education and funded by Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Regional Office-Palestine & National Endowment For Democracy (NED), USA. More than 160 high schools were targeted meaning 1600 high school students got involved, representing 16 directorates of education.

·   Background:

The Palestinian National Debate Championship aims at exposing the youth leaders in schools, universities and community organizations to a different culture of debate where life skills, primarily critical thinking and logical analysis are extensively practiced and equipped with scientific research, respecting human values. This program is considered a cornerstone for extracurricular activities within which emancipator learning could be highly exposed. AFKAR commenced this program in 2009 and still strives to pave its foundations to become a methodology for life

·   Objective:

To strengthen the Palestinian youth’s ability to think critically and speak critically and freely on controversial political social and economic topics

·   Target group:

The program was launched at the beginning of this scholastic year targeting more than 1600 students, directly, as they represented the tenth and eleventh grade within 160 public schools. PNDC also targeted 16 supervisors and 16 coordinators representing 16 directorates of education in the West Bank including Jerusalem.

·   Training & Workshops:

AFKAR set the basis for this program by exposing target supervisors & coordinators through the Training of trainers workshop, coaching and follow up sessions. students are also given advanced training workshops on debate concept, criteria and methodology including the refutation of statements which makes up the dynamic and interactive aspect of the whole process.

·   Program Processes:

At the beginning of the second semester 2015 each directorate had semi playoffs among participating schools within their own directorates. Each directorate came out with a team consisting of 4 students  and 1 coordinator either from one or a variety of schools to represent their directorate in order to prepare themselves for the finale competitions that were executed on 6,7 &10 5-2015.

Each directorate was preparing its team for competing over suggested motions on political, economic, social, educational, feminism and human rights topics. At the end of finale, Odeh Zahran, general director of AFKAR, announced the results for the top 8 directorates. Bethlehem came in first, while Tubas came in second. and Jerusalem Suburbs took the third place. All competitions mentioned were supervised by a panel of professional judges who obtain a long experience of evaluating students, where some of them have already worked with AFKAR since the program was first launched in 2009.

·   Our Trainers:

1.      Trainer of Trainers: Abd Al-salam Khadash- Program Manager at Tamer organization

2.      Coach: Khadija Eweidat -Educational counselor at UNRWA

3.      Students Trainer: Thuqan Kishawi- Freelancer

4.      Adjudication Committee:

ü  Najwan Birkadar- Regional Debate counselor & Judging

ü  Hamed Abu Mokhou- Head Department of student activities at MOE

ü  Abd Al-salam Khadash- Program Manager at Tamer organization & Debate Expert.

It is worth mentioning that those kinds of projects are rich with objectives that work on disseminating debate culture and civic awareness amongst students. PNDC is an original alternative for old-fashioned tools of teaching. IT focuses on not only knowledge but also the program gives some weight to attitude and values to be practiced among students. It also works on boosting the students’ self-esteem to present their cases in front of an audience. Moreover AFKAR has submitted to our donors to disseminate PDNC in some Palestinian universities hoping to be able to start the new project at the beginning of next semester of 2015/2016.

Part of the students' workshop/ Ramallah
21-3-2015