Scholastic Summit Correspondence

Scholastic Summit Correspondence

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The Scholastic Summit of HFSI, is not just a debate competition, it is an opportunity for our school to foster a platform for more exhilarating and intellectually stimulating discussion on issues of global significance. It serves as a chance for our school and its students to lead the way towards preparing young minds with the skills of policy making and conflict resolution, skills that will be essential for the citizens of the future, who will have to compete for roles in the ever-changing modern society. The Scholastic Summit allows our school to become the cornerstone of such forums across the city, allowing us to establish our school as a standard for high quality debate competitions. The year 2022 marks the 3rd Annual edition for the Scholastic Summit, being the first offline event to take place after Covid 19 pandemic restrictions. The prestigious schools that took part in this event were Rustomjee Cambridge International School, JBCN International School, Smt. Sulochanadevi Singhania School, and Hiranandani Foundation School International. Students represented their schools in a team of 4 and debated against each other in a tournament model of Lincoln Douglas Format. Alongside the students , the Scholastic Summit had invited many esteemed and experienced judges from many different schools and organisations, which allowed diversity in perspectives, and gave participants a chance to receive debating advice from the best. This 1 day event posed diverse topics for discussion which covered and explored many areas of knowledge such as A.I, Climate Change and Fashion trends. By providing a platform for students to speak openly on, The Scholastic Summit aims to educate and spread awareness about the various global issues happening around the world, as well as cultivate their debating, leadership and public speaking skills. Even though competitions have the defeaters and the defeated, a student’s participation is what matters the most and that is what HFSI aims to prove with the Scholastic Summit.

The session began with the opening ceremony where schools were introduced to the tournament format as well as the topic for the preliminaries. After a very inspiring speech from our beloved Principal, Ms. Kalyani Ma’am, the teams were allocated their stances and their adversaries. The esteemed judges were introduced and called upon for a speech to motivate the participants to do their best. Indeed, the participants were motivated as a lot of responsibility was riding on their shoulders. The Scholastic Summit was officially declared open for the day, and the Summit began with the preliminaries. On this day, participants spoke excellent and marvellous speeches regarding different topics. The competition was heated in every single round, as these competitive schools faced each other head on through multitudes of rebuttals, questions and facts. In all the rounds, the difference between the winners and the endeavours cut very close as the judges struggled to pick the best. It all came down to every single aspect of a debate, from an individual’s body language, to the clarity of their words and after many hard fought fights, the results were declared. Even though only one school came out victorious, no school went home without any awards, as there was always a speaker from each school which excelled in an aspect of debate, making the Summit very competitive. Witnessing such heartfelt debates fulfilled the aim of the event as the immensely dedicated team behind the Scholastic Summit succeeded in effective debates. By seeing how every participant learnt something new through the event, the aim of the Scholastic Summit was fulfilled, and the event was officially declared closed on a success. However, the Summit will be back next year, hoping to witness many more excellent debates next time.

- Eshaan Chaturvedi

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