DOHA: The Turkish team won the international schools Arabic debating competition championship, with Yemen as runner-up.
The winners and 15 top speakers were honoured by H E Sheikha Hind bint Hamad Al Thani, Vice- Chairman of Qatar Foundation at the closing ceremony at Qatar National Convention Centre.
The Jordanian team was second runner-up while Qatar took the fourth place in the competition which saw 22 teams from 18 Arab and four other nations.
The Yemeni and Turkish teams competed in the final round after a fierce semifinal with Qatar and Jordan. In the final debate, the two teams addressed the topic ‘This house believes that the deterioration of the Arabic language is caused by different Arabic dialects.”
The Turkish team — Ihsan Jamal, Yousef Snu and Osama Bakha — represented the opposition against the Yemeni team of Osama Haider, Muayed Al Razhy and Dia Saeed.
The judges panel included Wadha Al Hajri and Ali Al Sweidy (Qatar), Amina Juma (Egypt), Mohammad Salman (Malaysia), Ibrahim El Qarqouri (Tunisia), Fahd Al Subaie and Nabil Al Mufrih (Kuwait) and Saad Al Assad (Sudan).
Engineer Saad bin Ibrahim Al Mohannadi, Chairman, Qatar Foundation, launched ‘Introduction to the Art of Debating’, the third publication from QatarDebate, written by Dr Abdellatif Sellami, Educational Programmes Manager, QatarDebate, and reviewed by Dr Hayat Abdullah Maarafi, Executive Director, QatarDebate.
