The Universitas Indonesia team represented by three students across the FMIPA UI study program namely Eduardus Erlangga (Actuarial Science 2017), Brenda Mutiara (Mathematics 2017), and Elvina Vania (Statistics 2017) won the 1st place in the Indonesian Language Debate Competition in the Debate Competition National PGSD FIP UPI 2019.
The competition that carries the theme “Quo Vadis agent of change and agent of conversation for millennial students” was held by the Indonesian University of Education (UPI) from November 29th to December 1st, 2019, at UPI, Bandung, West Java.
Eduardus as the team leader explained the stages of the competition he had to face with his team.
As an initial step, the three of them are required to make an essay first. Through an essay entitled “Students as Agents of Environmental Change“, Eduard and the team outlined one creative and objective idea according to a predetermined theme based on logical argumentation and supported by data from trusted sources.
“So, for this essay, we must elaborate arguments with issues according to the theme, it must be creative and objective too”. said, Eduard.
He also explained the ideas in the essay, namely about the role of students as agents of positive change in all fields, both in the fields of education, social, economic, cultural, and so on, to support government programs to realize superior human resources.
Also, continued Eduard, his team stressed that students must position themselves as an Agent of Conversation, meaning that students must be able to be a connector of the public’s aspirations to the government through studies as recommendations for a public policy product made by the government so that the policies public policy can solve problems that exist in society.
In this essay stage, his team competes with 30 other teams to take the position of the 8 best teams and has the right to move to the next stage, namely the preliminary round.
With a preliminary round, the three defeated the Universitas Padjadjaran (UNPAD) team, their victory over UNPAD brought the UI team into the semifinal to face the Gadjah Mada University (UGM) team.
The victory of the UI team after defeating the UGM team in the semifinals, brought the UI team to face the Bogor Agricultural University (IPB) team in the final round. The UI team won first place by getting rid of IPB in the final round.
Brenda, one of the team members, revealed that actually, their preparations ahead of the preliminary round were brief, as was required in the race that each team debated 1 topic according to the motion (debate theme) in each match, using formal Indonesian language, good, polite, and clear.
The motion (debate theme) they received from the committee on Monday (11/25), said Brenda, had only been prepared on Wednesday (11/27), which meant they were only able to prepare the motion within 2 days before entering the preliminary round. Friday (11/29).
“We received a motion (debate theme) for the preliminary round on Monday, there were 6 motions (debate theme). Whereas the preliminary round is Friday, and we just prepared it Wednesday night, and that’s not finished yet. ” Brenda said.
Even so, the team representing the UI remained optimistic and enthusiastic. The three of them claimed to be proud and at one time did not believe that they had won this debate competition.
Another team member, Vania, hopes that through her achievements with the team, it can increase the enthusiasm and activeness of fellow students to take part in the debate competition. According to him at this time, enthusiasm among students in participating in the debate competition was still relatively low.
“I really hope that other fellow students also actively take part in the debate competition, because in my opinion the enthusiasm and interest of the debate competition in Indonesia are still rare,” said Vania.
