Three delegates from grade XII namely,
Aadyaa Vivek, Stuti Arya, and Suhani Baheti, accompanied by the Teacher Escort Mrs. Reshma Bhattacherjee, left the portals of RKK on the 25th of April and reached the wooded, grassy and extremely beautiful campus of RIMC that offered a breath of fresh air, on 26th April. All of us were in a determined, steady yet calm mindset, ready to represent our school in the
All-India Hugh Catchpole English Debate 2023, hosted by the Rashtriya Indian Military College, Dehradun from 27th to 29th April 2023.After a day’s rest, we went on to have our debates the next day. There were a total of 16 schools out of which 5 were outstation, whilst others were reputed schools of Dehradun like The Doon School, Welham Girls, The Asian School, and so on. We had our Preliminary round against Unison World School, where we were in opposition to the topic: ‘THBT blended learning facilitates plagiarism rather than critical thinking’. We won the debate and made it to the quarter-finals, where we defeated the Vasant Valley School, Delhi with us being in the proposition for the motion: ‘THBT we must choose highly qualified politicians to be our leaders’. We thereby cemented our place in the Semi-Finals as one of the eight out of sixteen participating schools.
Both the Prelims and Quarter-finals had extra rounds for the schools that could not make it on the first try, and it is a matter of honour and pride that we made both on the first attempt.
The same day we had the Semi-finals against The Asian School on a very controversial yet amusing topic: ‘THBT to ensure greater peace in Indian families, husbands must become home-makers’. Our stance was appreciated but we could not make it to the finals.
The constant debating taught us the art of spontaneity and the significance of genuinely, deeply listening and reflecting on other people’s words. We learnt the art of prompt rebuttals and strategizing content.
The trophy was bagged by The Doon International School. The Runners-Up school were The Asian School, followed by Welham Girls. The Doon School, ranked fourth.
With content hearts of greatly learning from the entire experience and making wonderful memories with the other schools and of course the first girl cadets of RIMC, we set back to our home, Jodhpur on the 29th of April.
