Six mentors and over 20 schools from the city will debate the pros and cons of technology as part of the second edition of Debating Excellence 2025, organised by the Calcutta Debating Circle (CDC) in association with The Telegraph, Young Metro, and JIS Group from June 28 to July 8.
The event aims to educate students from high schools and colleges — through workshops and an exhibition — not only in the art of presenting arguments in professional life, but also in speaking and conducting themselves socially.
The students will be trained in communicative English, the right diction and how to analyse and present their cases, irrespective of their future careers.
The event will kick off with workshops in individual schools, such as Garden High School, B.D.M. International, Narayana School, New Town, M.C. Kejriwal Vidyapeeth, Indus Valley World School, The Newtown School and others. Besides, there will be an open workshop of over 150 students at Rotary Sadan, like last year.
“Whenever I go to schools to moderate a debate, students ask me whether ChatGPT and AI are killing the art of debating. Will there be no real art left in the future? I have compiled these queries, which will be taken up during the workshop. Thus, we decided to make technology the theme of this year’s debate, discussing its pros and cons,” said CDC trustee Pradeep Gooptu.
He said: “The CDC can do this because our resources are supplemented by future-oriented schools.”
The visiting mentors will train at the participating schools. The best students from each school and open workshops will take part in an exhibition debate on the JIS campus on July 8.
The mentors will act as the non-playing captains in
the event.
Another highlight of the event is an exhibition debate on July 5 in the memory of Sandip Chatterjee, managing trustee of the CDC, that will see the visitors, members of Indo British Scholars’ Association and those of the CDC locking horns.
This year’s mentors include Isaac Ohringer, a history student at the University of Cambridge; Hunter, a history and literature student at Harvard University; Jordan Anderson, the winner of several international debating competitions; Zachary Fleesler, an Oxford University student of politics and philosophy; debating coach Heather Robinson from the UK; and Elias, a graduate in ethics, politics and economics from Yale University.
“We don’t have a debate with technology. Technology has to be accepted. But it should not compromise the manifestation of human expressions. We are standing at a crossroads. This generation is way more intelligent, but so absorbed in digital media that their expressions and communication skills often take a back seat. We hope to revive the art of articulation through this event,” said Dr Kunal Sarkar, cardiac surgeon and CDC trustee.