The Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), is now bracing itself for the World University Debate Championship (WUDC) after winning the 2018 edition of the Pan-African University Debate Championship held in Dars es Salaam in Tanzania, making it the first time the tournament has been won by an institution outside the Southern African region, and KNUST the first University in West Africa to win the competition.
The Director of Sports of KNUST who led the delegation to Tanzania, Dr Anthony Adjei Tetteh Opai, said the school is proud to set the pace and is hoping to go to the global championship and thrive.
KNUST emerged as winners of the 11th edition of the Pan African debate competitions held in Tanzania.
The competition which was held from 5-12th December, 2018 under the theme: “Free speech. Unifying Africa” saw Boakye Nyamekye Isaac and Erasmus Segbefia inspire team KNUST to victory.
Boakye Nyamekye Isaac and Erasmus Maali Segbefia (who represented KNUST in the final) spoke on the motion “This House Regrets the Notion of Pan Africanism” from Closing Opposition and won by a unanimous decision.
“We have won the Ghana Universities Debate Championship (GUDC) for four consecutive years and were hoping to make strides in Africa and we are glad to come this far. We are hoping to go for Worlds [Worlds Universities Debate Championship (WUDC)] this year and do our best.” Dr Tetteh Opai indicated.
Dr. Tetteh Opai also revealed that the team will be honouring some invitational tournaments involving champions across the world. “Aside this, there are other invitational tournaments which involves all the champions across all the continents so the best from South America, North America, Asia, Europe and Africa’s best which is KNUST from Ghana so we are hoping to go to all these tournaments and lift the flag of Ghana high”, Dr Tetteh Opai said.
The World Universities Debating Championship, often shorted to the WUDC or “Worlds,” is one of the largest international student events on the planet. Held each year from the 27th of December to the 4th of January,The WUDC has been held annually since 1981. It brings together between 350 and 500 teams of two, plus several hundred judges and hundreds of observers, together for a competition which in the crowning of an undisputed English-language world champion of collegiate debate.
The WUDC is hosted each year in a different country by a different institution. The 2015 World Championship was hosted in Kuala Lumpur by UT-Mara, and the 2016 edition will be hosted by the University of Thessaloniki, in Greece. Typically, universities from over sixty countries, and every inhabited continent, attend the competition. The 2018 edition which was held in Mexico was won by the Harvard debating society.
This will be the first time KNUST will partake in the competition and the second University in Ghana to compete in the tournament after the University of Ghana. UG has made three appearances at the competition. The first was in the Malaysia 2015 championship where it ranked 269. At the 2017 edition in, University of Ghana participants at the Hague in the Netherlands were ranked 214.
KNUST will be looking to better Ghana’s record on the world stage.