The Landscape of Competitive Debate In Aceh: Benefit, Achievement, and Challenges
View/ Open
Date
2017-04-04Author
Iqhrammullah, Muhammad
Zuelda, Natasya
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
With a huge amount of budget allocation, Aceh education, however only reached 32 position out of 34
other provinces in Indonesia. Indonesia itself ranked last out of 50 countries in a landmark education report.
On the other hand, competitive debate is an effective tools to improve students’ academic attainment,
critical thinking skill, problem solving skill, and other soft skills. However with many challenges in debate
proliferation, its practice is still uncommon and developed unevenly only in Kota Banda Aceh and its
neighbour,Kabupaten Aceh Besar. This research paper aims to explore the impact of debate activities
in Aceh, Acehnese students competitive debate experience and achievement, challenges of competitive
debate proliferation and quality of debate competition in Aceh. The study was quantitative in nature. A
questionnaire was designed on Likert scale in order to collect data from a group of 54 varsity or secondary
school students who had experienced debating activity. Finally on the basis of finding shows that competitive
debate improved Acehnese students ability in English, critical thinking, problem solving, logical thinking,
team work, self-confidence, networking, social awareness, and competitiveness. Lacking of Acehnese
students’ participation in national and international level resulted uneven distribution of good qualified
debaters in Aceh. The absence of standardized debating curriculum and the lacking of financial assistance
and information access were seen as the major challenges of competitive debate proliferation in Aceh.