SAI International School, the No. 1 School in the country, as per the Education World, India School Rankings 2020-21 aims to build a strong foundation by strengthening the cognitive and non-cognitive abilities of the students. We believe embedding Indian values with a Global outlook, thereby creating an environment of happiness in every student, thus promoting 360 degree holistic growth along with nurturing the uniqueness of each child. The experience was indeed unique, in debate education, public speaking, and democratic-leadership development.
The SAI Global Debate provided a global platform to students to lead the change, and transform our world with an aim to foster a sound and sustainable culture of debate and dialogue. The intention is to provide young people across backgrounds with the opportunity to develop debating, speaking, listening and literacy skills through debate training and competitions that will ultimately improve self-esteem, collaboration, team-work, academic achievement, graduation success rates, and access to higher education It is a firm belief of the school that debate as part of education is the key to strengthen knowledge on democratic institutions, discussion on human rights, potentials to foster better understanding of people and society.
The Virtual SAI Global Debate laid special focus on fostering awareness and allowed in depth discussion on the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. The sole aim of shaping aware, active and engaged global citizens and leaders of tomorrow equipped with the knowledge, and skills to communicate effectively and to be able to address the local and global challenges and issues of the 21st Century.
The initiative is progressive seeking to develop confident communicators, critical-thinkers, and empowered global citizens and leaders equipped to shape a liberal , inclusive, peaceful, and sustainable future for all.
To intensively engage the children in instilling the 21st century skills of communication, collaboration and critical thinking, a Global Debate Competition was held at SAI International, Bhubaneswar, Odisha on Saturday, January29, 2022. This mega online debate competition had students participating from over 10 countries and 49 Schools across the globe such as China, UAE, Japan, Pakistan, South Africa, Uganda, Rwanda, Morocco, Kenya and India. With 2 Schools from Japan, 2 Schools from Pakistan, 38 Schools from India and one school each from China, South Africa, UAE, Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya& Morocco.
The closing ceremony was graced by Hon’ble Guest Mr. Alex Ellis, British High Commissioner to India, Keynote Speaker Mr. Hemanth Bharatha Chakravarthy, National Debate Team, India Runner Up, World Schools Debating Championships & Chairperson of Events, Harvard College Debating Union and Dr. Shilpi Sahoo, Chairperson, SAI International Education Group, Bhubaneswar, Odisha.
Hon’ble Guest Mr. Alex Ellis, British High Commissioner to the Republic of India, while addressing the students greeted them as per their time zones, he said, “Global problem needs global solutions and these can be addressed by deliberations and discussions as the global solutions cannot be forced, it has to come about with a coalition of each country”. He spoke on the relevance of inculcating topics related to climate change, cyber security & artificial intelligence & how imperative it is for this generation to provoke discussions about them. He was happy to be a part of SAI Global Debate Competition and emphasized that the ability to debate on opinions will help the mankind and create awareness which will ensure you will have a better future.
While addressing the students Keynote Speaker Shri Hemanth Bharatha Chakravarthy thanked SAI International for organizing a Global Debate Competition and appreciated its sprawling sports infrastructure. He spoke on “Debate and its role in society”. Mr. Chakravarthy emphasized on speaking and writing skills for development of debating skills.
Thanking the esteemed guests, Dr. Shilpi Sahoo, Chairperson, SAI International Education Group congratulated all the students who had participated in the SAI Global Debate Competition from 10 countries and 49 Schools. She emphasized upon learning from intercultural relationships through such mega events, working towards attaining the Sustainable Development Goal together as one world one family and promote inclusive global citizenship. She firmly believes that the Global Debates’ experience is unique, time-tested and one of the leading set of programs in debate education, public speaking, and democratic-leadership development.
The winners were announced after a rigorous two rounds of deliberations. They were judged upon content, accuracy, clarity, body language, expression, and many more. The topics of the debate varied such as, ‘The future of AI and School Education will go hand in hand’; ‘Development of AI will help humanity’; ‘Artificial Intelligence has the potential to address some of the biggest challenges in school education today’; ‘Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in schools will help achieve the 4th SDG.’; ‘Should Cyber security be added to school curricula?’; ‘Excessive use of Internet has led to unsafe learning’; ‘Is climate change already irreversible?’;’ Will robots increase people’s quality of life?’;’ Has the pandemic helped in reducing carbon foot prints?’;’ Will robots increase people’s quality of life?’
SAI Global Debate is an independent, non-partisan, progressive initiative seeking to develop confident communicators, critical-thinkers, and empowered global citizens and leaders —of today and tomorrow— equipped to shape a more just, inclusive, peaceful, secure and sustainable future for all.
SAI International has transformed the educational landscape with all its Global Dimension programmes. SAI International, through these initiatives, has not just changed the face of education in India but now is a School to reckon with pride globally. It has undoubtedly impacted the global learning scenario setting a benchmark in a Global debate of this stature, thereby leveraging the power of social and peer-to-peer learning through a heterogeneous group of learners.
