De-Bolds Group of Schools, Ikorodu, has defeated Ikorodu Senior High School in the Nigeria Info FM I Beg to Differ Secondary School Debate Tournament, securing a place in the next stage of the competition.
The debate, which is part of the ongoing Round of 32 fixtures, centred on the motion: “Competition Improves Learning More Than Cooperation.”
The I Beg to Differ Season 10 tournament began on November 8, with secondary schools participating in a series of debates to determine which teams will advance towards the national finals scheduled for February.
De-Bolds Group of Schools, which argued in support of the motion, secured victory through a unanimous decision by the three-member judging panel and the audience vote.
The school received 58 per cent of the audience vote, while Ikorodu Senior High School secured 42 per cent.
The judges also awarded De-Bolds higher cumulative scores across the three rounds. The first round ended 27.5 to 21, the second 20 to 16.5, while the third round was scored 21 to 16 in favour of the winning school.
Representing De-Bolds Group of Schools were Oluwashindara and Angela, who argued that competition encourages students to set higher academic goals, improve their abilities and develop resilience when faced with challenges.
They maintained that healthy competition pushes students beyond their comfort zones and prepares them to handle real-life situations by teaching them to persevere despite setbacks.
On the opposing side, Ikorodu Senior High School was represented by Somtochukwu and Dolapo, who argued that cooperation creates a more supportive learning environment by encouraging students to share knowledge, exchange ideas and help one another understand difficult subjects.
They maintained that collaborative learning allows students with different strengths and abilities to learn from one another while reducing unnecessary academic pressure and unhealthy comparisons.
Following the debate, diction coach and mentor Titus Bankoli advised the students to improve their articulation, grammatical accuracy and sentence construction.
He urged them to avoid fragmented expressions, run-on sentences, incorrect tense usage and subject-verb disagreements, stressing that linguistic precision and clarity are important in effective debating.
Announcing the results, the programme host, Femi Obong-Daniels, congratulated De-Bolds Group of Schools on its victory and confirmed that the team would advance to face the winner of another Round of 32 debate.
Ikorodu Senior High School was also encouraged to pursue another opportunity to qualify for the national finals in February.
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