Home News Speaker’s Youth Debating Competition aims to bring Parliament closer to citizens
– 48 youth groups slated to participate
The Speaker’s Regional Youth Debating Competition was launched on Thursday as part of a series of activities to commemorate Parliament’s 70th anniversary. One objective of this exercise is to bring the law-making body closer to the people.
This year’s competition will see participation of 48 youth groups comprising over 144 persons from each of the 10 administrative regions.
Speaker of the National Assembly, Manzoor Nadir, in his opening remarks at the launch of this event, explained that the programme also aims to look at the youth population’s participation in community activities, careers of service to the nation, and to make people more aware of Parliament as an institution.
He said the youth debating competition also provides tens of thousands of viewers of all ages with information on social and national issues.
This is the first-ever preliminary-level competition, and the final 16 groups would advance to compete at the National Youth Debating Competition. About six debating sessions will be held per day on Tuesdays and Fridays.
Speaker Nadir also revealed that there are “some very exciting topics” in this year’s competition. “We asked young people to generate some ideas that they would want to debate on, instead of giving them topics. Because if you are going to promote youth participation, at least let it start from scratch. Get organised, and have an input in what you want to debate. Because that also sends signals to those who are older and to who are making policy decisions,” he explained.
Among the topics to be debated are: “Separation of powers work in Guyana”, “Multi-party democracy is the best form of governance”, “Guyana should have remained dependent”, “Carbon credit markets will not last”, “Public service rules are archaic”, “The 40-hour work week is ludicrous”, “Poverty is a mindset”, and “Hinterland regions are incapable of offering job opportunities”.
Further, Speaker Nadir has declared that he is looking forward to “clean debating”, and is happy to see schools showing keen interest in participating.
“This is working. The fact that we are now seeing 48 youth groups starting the preliminary round is an indication that we have done something right,” he reasoned.
The debates will be broadcast live on Parliament’s Facebook page and are expected to conclude in June.
Guyana held its first elections on April 27, 1953, Parliamentarians were first sworn-in on May 18, 1953, and the first ceremonial opening of Parliament was on May 30, 1953.