Students returned to school this month after the August holidays, and we continued to work with the Great Debaters team to progress the iMlango Junior Great Debaters contest, the pioneering competition that utilises debating elements from the Great Debaters Contest TV show and iMlango’s interactive learning platform to deliver debating motions and capture student responses.
The contest is now into its second round after the first round results were released. There were 452 groups in total, comprising of 2,260 students that responded to the first round of the contest, with the top 100 groups progressing through to the second round.
The field team observed many of the group sessions that the students used to construct their responses, and it was apparent that a healthy dose of competition brought the best out of the students.
It was also interesting to see some recurring student attributes during the different group sessions, such as a leader emerging amongst the group members without the teacher appointing one, a ‘secretary’ being chosen by the group members to write down the response, and that everyone wants to type the work on the computer.
Commenting on the iMlango Junior Debaters Contest, Mr Munyao, a teacher at Mtito Andei primary school said: “The debate helped pupils in mastering the English language especially in reading and writing. It developed pupils’ creative thinking and research skills as they had to research for answers. It also prompted pupils to learn.”
Away from the schools we held our quarterly review meeting to ensure the programme remains on track. Our field team also held insightful meetings with education officials in the Uasin Gishu, Makueni and Kilifi counties to provide an update on the programme, in addition to sharing the feedback that we had received from the schools.
Until next time,
The iMlango team