On April 28th and 29th, Noah James, Samine Darroux, Shawnalee Gordon, and Hananel Valerie will represent the Dominica State College and Dominica at the 5th Annual Windward Islands Debating Competition. The virtual competition will be streamed live on the College’s Facebook page.
The team will participate in the semi-finals round on April 28th, 2022. They will be debating against Grenada (T.A Marryshow Community College) on the topic “The shift to virtual learning during the pandemic exposed regional governments’ failure to successfully integrate ICT into our education systems.” If the team is successful, they will proceed to the finals on April 29th, 2022, and debate on the topic “Countries have a right to impose vaccine mandates to protect the health of their populations.”
Commenting on the student’s readiness for the debate, Trudy Christian, debate coach and Director of Student Affairs, said, “The students have been preparing and are ready to represent Dominica.” It’s a bit nerve-wracking for them to take part in the first-ever virtual form of this competition, but they’re determined to do their best.”
Dominica has won the competition twice, in 2017 and 2018, and hosted this competition the last time it was held in 2020. There was no competition in 2021 due to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The College expresses gratitude to the Ministry of Education, Jays Bookstore Ltd., GEMS Holdings Ltd, and the National Bank of Dominica for sponsoring the team.