IIUM Students Crowned Winners at the Australs

(photo courtesy: thestar.com.my)

IIUM’s team comprised of Bangladeshi student Mubarrat Wassey, Afghani student Sara Abdul Rahim, and Malaysian student Ameera Natasha Moore, whose team had come fresh off from winning the 7th United Asian Debating Championship (UADC) in Bangkok last month. Wassey has also been ranked as the best speaker in Asia in 2016.

At the Australs grand finals, Ameera received the title of best speaker in the competition, a double win for the law student.

The grand finals took place at the University of Western Australia, in Perth, where IIUM debated the motion of “This House believes that feminist should oppose drag culture” against Sydney University with a mere thirty minutes of planning, emerging victorious.

Ameera told The Star Online that "I'm glad that we finally proved that Asian debaters are definitely a force to be reckoned with," since the 100 teams in the competition hailed from Australia and New Zealand as well -- both countries known to be the home of several top debaters.

It was a good year for Malaysia at the Australs, with Universiti Malaya (UM) nabbing the trophy for the English as a Second Language (ESL) category, while the Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) team managed to reach up to the main category’s semi-finals as well. Moreover, out of the 300 participants at the championship five of the top ten were from Malaysian universities.

(cover photo courtesy: IIUM English Debate team Facebook)