The World Schools Debating Championships (WSDC) bring together articulate young people from around the world – debating for their countries. Students from over 50 countries, representing every of the world’s continents, have taken part in WSDC since its inception, in Australia, in 1988. 

As well as encouraging competition between the most talented young debaters in the world, the WSDC aims to promote international understanding and celebrate free speech. As such, competing teams are expected to be prepared to take on any issue, and debate with any other country. Typically, the debates cover a range of political, moral, cultural and economic issues.

• The tournament takes place over two weeks, with all teams taking on eight others in “preliminary debates”.
• Four of these debates are prepared – in that teams are told in advance of travelling to the tournament what the topics will be. The other four rounds are impromptu, with the topic revealed to both teams one hour prior to the start of the debate.
• Based on the results of these preliminary rounds, the top 16 teams then advance or “break” to the knockout phase of the competition, in which the loser of each debate is eliminated until the final two are left standing for a Grand Final.
• All knock-out round debates are impromptu. Across all debates, teams have three members: all three deliver an eight-minute speech, but the “leader” gives an additional four-minute reply at the end.

The WSDC started as a small collection of countries – only Australia, New Zealand, Canada, England, Hong Kong and the United States competed in the 1988 edition. But in the twenty-two years since, the countries participating have expanded dramatically to include many nations in Latin America (eg Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Peru), the Middle East (eg Israel, Palestine, Qatar, Kuwait), Africa (eg Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe) and Asia (eg Pakistan, Indonesia, Japan, Philippines). 

The next WSDC will be held in Turkey in January 2013.