Kyushu U students’ big success at national debate tournament

Sponsored by the Japan Debate Association (JDA) Kyushu Chapter and co-sponsored by Kyushu University’s Faculty of Languages & Cultures and School of Interdisciplinary Science and Innovation, the 17th JDA Kyushu Debate Tournament was held at Kyushu University’s Ito Campus on December 7.

Kyushu University students Kanako Uchida (third-year student, School of Law) and Kosei Enomoto (first-year student, School of Interdisciplinary Science and Innovation) propelled their two-person team to the tournament’s final round based on their excellent performance in two preliminary rounds.

This is one of the several national tournaments in which the topic of the debate is announced well in advance so that the participating teams can conduct extensive research and prepare speeches.

Seven teams, with participants including business persons, university students, high school students, and junior high school students, debated under the resolution that “the Japanese government should significantly increase its minimum wage.”

After three preliminary rounds over which each team debated once on the Affirmative and once on the Negative and judged once, the team of Uchida and Enomoto advanced to the final round, where they faced a very experienced team of business professionals from Tokyo that went on to take the top honors.

The announcement and the rules of the tournament (in Japanese) are here:
https://www.facebook.com/japan.debate/posts/2819634224724696

The results of the tournament are reported here in Japanese:
https://www.facebook.com/japan.debate/posts/2901065703248214

The final round is now available on Youtube.
https://youtu.be/_Jd0-ovo2EE