AMID rousing cheers the Herbert Morrison Technical High School team of Nailah Allen, Benjamin Scott and Matthew Douglas claimed bragging rights as winners of JPS Foundation’s inaugural Power Up Energy Club Debate Competition Finals. The persuasive arguments presented by the teenaged trio ultimately trumped their rivals Joshua Atkins, Brianna Thomas, and Kimani Leslie from the St Andrew-based Excelsior High.

The wrap-up of the foundation’s debate contest — which ran for a five-week stretch around the country — culminated inside a capacity-filled lecture theatre at the Faculty of Science and Technology at the University of the West Indies, Mona, two Thursdays ago.

Only just managing to contain her euphoria mere moments after the winning announcement came, an ear-to-ear smiling Allen from Herbert Morrison shared: “This is honestly quite phenomenal to me as this is my first debate competition, and I won!” The 17-year-old, who joined her school’s Energy Club four months ago, found her exposure to the debating world both enlightening and a character-builder. “Some of my team members had previous experience. They helped and guided me through the process, as did our coach and my teachers,” she said.

In preparation for the oratorial grand finals, Allen explained the plan of action devised by the team. “At first, when we saw the motion, we were like: ‘Oh boy, this is so intricate,’ so we thought about what stance we could take. We had to define what it meant and decide; then we were predicting the possibilities of what the opposition would bring. Luckily, we were prepared and able to tackle it.”

For their first-place finish opposing the motion of electricity theft and the onus of responsibility regarding who should pay, the Herbert Morrison team won $200,000. Their coach Althea Reid-Douglas was awarded $50,000.

On cloud nine after her team’s triumph, winning coach Reid-Douglas raved, “We are very happy, particularly so because we [Herbert Morrison] have not built a culture of debating. For us to have done so well as the competition’s inaugural winners, I am really pleased.”

The educator, also a sixth-form coordinator at the St James institution, said that in addition to the JPS Foundation’s school debate, the relatively new team had also entered the Burger King-sponsored National Tourism Debate, and finished in third place.

“We knew our weaknesses coming out of that debate so we worked on our engagement first, and for the JPS Foundation finals we knew we had to tighten up in relation to our public speaking qualities and the kind of micro-debating that was required.”

While victory eluded Excelsior High, team member Kimani Leslie successfully cinched the title of Best Debater in the finals.

“I was actually astounded by that win,” he admitted. “How do I feel about us coming second? I am grateful. It means a lot and shows that we have been putting in a level of work. We have been grinding and working assiduously.”

Just one hour before these JPS Power Up Energy Club debate play-offs Leslie and his teammates had competed in the National Tourism Debates at the Public Broadcasting Corporation of Jamaica studios in Half-Way-Tree.

“As we were preparing for both speeches for the two competitions, we started writing the speeches two days before the actual competitions, as posited by our advisor. We were up until three in the morning, trying to fix the speeches,” the top debater revealed.

Proud of her team’s penultimate placement in JPS Foundation’s event, Excelsior coach Flavia Allen declared, “We are eagles, and we only train eagles, and we always go for the highest — which is first place. Nonetheless, second place for a new debating club that was launched last month is excellent. I am so proud of all the debaters, and the club members, the teachers, the principal, and all the people on the outside who gave us advice in the different ways on how to approach the motion.”

For their well-articulated efforts the runner-up Excelsior team pocketed $100,000, and coach Allen, $25,000.

Meanwhile, heaping praises on all the day’s debaters Jermaine Barrett, founder and executive director of Jamaica Association for Debate and Empowerment (JADE) — which adjudicated and assisted the JPS contest to get up and running — said it is remarkable that they have been able to cultivate such talent among students who are largely STEM students.

“There is a sort of stereotypical view of students who study engineering, mathematics and so forth of not being articulate, and here it is we have seen [that] nothing could be farther from the truth,” he said.

Head of JPS Foundation Sophia Lewis was gratified with the debating contest’s journey from the first rounds that began on March 25.

“We are elated at the growth that we have seen in our students. The finals had everyone on the edge of their seats as each side had such compelling arguments. I am feeling very happy we chose to invest in our students in this way. They demonstrated significant diligence and good sportsmanship,” she noted.