By: Lanre Shodimu
The act of public speaking is an essential tool for assessing the brilliance or otherwise of students from post primary institutions in the country. Public speaking through debates improve the quality and abilities of students to air their opinion on national issues.
Amidst cheers and boos, the selected students under the Kosofe Constituency filed out for debate competition which was organized and sponsored by Lawmaker representing Kosofe Constituency I, Lagos State House of Assembly, Hon. Sanni Okanlawon (OKLA), who doubles as Chairman, House Committee on Education.
The competition being the first of its kind in the Constituency with the topic “Government should spend more money on Security than Education” had student drawn from seven different schools in the Constituency and placed under 3 categories; they are:Muslim Senior College, Anthony Village High School, Ogudu Senior High School, Ojota Senior High School, Mende Senior High School, Ifako Comprehensive Senior High School, and Immaculate Senior Comprehensive High School respectively.
The debate competition took place on Wednesday 16th, February 2022, at the Immaculate Heart Hall, Maryland, Lagos.
Present at the event were Director General, Quality Assurance, Lagos State, Mrs Abiola Seriki Ayeni, Honourable Musiliu Aigoro,
APC Kosofe L.G.A Chairman, Alhaji Kehinde Bello, Education Secretary – Hon. Babatunde Shoneye was represented by Mrs. Adelaja, General Permanent Secretary Education District II, Mrs Anike.
OKLA, who is also the convener of the debate competition, was also present to grace the occasion.
In his opening speech, the organizer of the School debate and member representing Kosofe Constituency I, Hon. Okanlawon, stated his love for educational development as the reason for organizing the debate competition. He also reeled out some of his achievements in the educational development of the constituency, which includes health insurance for students, distribution of learning material and provision of boreholes for schools. Cash rewards were also earmarked for different categories of winners, consisting of the pupils and their teachers. The debate competition also had in attendance Principals of participating schools.
At the end of the opening remarks, 14 contestants comprising 4 Boys and 10 Girls, under the watchful eyes of panel of judges consisting of the trio of John Wesly
Olowe KP(timekeeper), Otayemi Enitan are ready to battle for the competition.
Representatives of each school were called upon and one after the other the students made their presentation for or against.
While it was noticeable that a lot of the students were nervous and jittery, some however started on a high spirit, arousing lots of cheers from the audience but were unable to sustain their tempo probably because they were distracted or missed the mark by not placing their points rightly. Others became bereft of point to buttress their arguments. It was however certain that the event was tension soaked as almost all the contestants kept speaking after the bell rang twice as a signal for them to round up their thoughts and the timekeeper had to warn them on this.
The lead panelists at the end of the exercise, before reeling out the results, pointed out the lack of creativity on the part of the students in the debate process as almost all the contestants outrightly starting the debate with the definition of the key substance of the subject. He urged teachers to emphasized on creativity as a way of spicing the debate process to eliminate boredom.
Also, the issue of cramming was also pointed out by the lead panelist, which sent most of the contestants off the hook and made them lost track and focus as soon as they forgot one or two Important sentences needed to buttress their points.
These are indeed important observations and thus a reflection of what the Nigeria school system can offer for now. It’s indeed a function Garbage in Garbage out GIGO in our educational system.
While precision and accuracy was still exhibited by some contestants, such attributes may not be unattributable to the person’s exceptionality and brilliance.
The competition was indeed good enough to expose the talents, inadequacies and challenges in the Nigeria’s educational system, which still requires more efforts by stakeholders to improve on.
Efforts still needs to be put in place in order to improve students’ proficiency in public debate.
Kudos to OKLA and his Committees for this initiative at helping to improve students’ abilities to speak up on National issues through debates.
It’s indeed a welcomed development and another way of assessing Nigeria’s level of educational development through public speaking.