Dear Editor,

Currently, teams of secondary school students are competing in the JOF Haynes debating series being run by the Ministry of Education. I would like, first, to congratulate all those organizations and individuals who work hard to run such competitions for our school-children. One cannot measure the growth in self-esteem and self-confidence that participation in these events can stimulate. So hats off to all participants − officials, teachers, sponsors, students.

But blame must be mixed with the praise. Just last week a team of judges in the JOF Haynes series decided not to declare a winning team because the moot for that particular debate was so one-sided as to render even the finest efforts of one team totally useless. My congratulations to those judges for having the courage to act as they did in an obviously unjust situation.

Thoughtful planning and administration of these competitions is vital. Age categories need to be carefully decided on, essay topics and length must be appropriate to the age level, debate moots must be balanced so that either side has a fair chance of winning, judges must be selected wisely, clear guidelines must be provided giving criteria by which the performance is to be judged, and those criteria must be made available to the contestants at the outset.

If such basics as these are ignored, inter-school competitions run the risk of producing most undesirable effects. Our goals in running a competition may well be fine indeed:  to foster self-confidence, a sense of fair play, respect for the other team, self-discipline, enthusiastic research and teamwork, and even the strength to lose with grace.

But if our moots are unfair, if our judges are biased or incompetent, if 11-year-olds are matched against 18-year-olds, if the topics are way beyond the intellectual capacity of the target group, if parents or teachers write the pieces that are submitted and sign them off as being the work of the student − if these and other travesties are permitted, then the result of our inter-school competitions will be none of the fine goals listed above, but an increase in the apathy and sense of injustice that already are robbing our young people of their joy in living.

As educators we surely need to pull our socks up.

Yours faithfully,
Joyce Jonas