Brunei Debating

Debating

 When I arrived at Menglait I was allocated the responsibility for debating by my HOD. I didn’t know at the time that debating was the worst job you could be given. I was not consulted about it –I was simply allocated it by the HOD –a fact which I  resented at the time!

Australians talk long and loud about democracy and participation but as soon as this Aussie got the chance she seemed to do what everyone else does in Brunei –just dish the jobs out without consultation.

I hadn’t a clue-what was a debate? I was after all originally a science teacher. Anyway, after a few weeks I had a meeting of those interested in debating and found a huge amount of interest. About twenty five senior students turned up. I didn’t really know what I was doing but I do remember that two noisy boys at the back were creating a disturbance which annoyed me. It turned out that these boys were to become the backbone of the debating team in the following year. Apparently they were so unimpressed with me on that first day that they never came back for the rest of the first year! Anyway, I set a meeting for a future date and for the next few months of the year I had some very low-key meetings with some very keen girls and one boy-all of very average speaking ability. Basically, all the arguments and speeches had to be written by me. This meant a lot of work for yours truly. Nevertheless, I think we all enjoyed it.

Then one Saturday at noon we received a fax from the Ministry asking us to appear on the Monday at the inter-schools debating competition! We hadn’t even been told what were the topics. This was just the sort of thing I had come to expect from the Ministry. We couldn’t go of course.

After a couple of years of this farcical disorganization the Ministry had the brilliant idea of dumping the organization of these competitions into the laps of the schools. The winning school was asked to host the competition in the following year.

The following year the two ‘noisy boys’ turned out to be the backbone of the debating team at Menglait.

One of them was the infamous son of the Director of schools, and the other was  a boy who had one Bruneian parent and one English parent, so his English was very good. Both were arrogant and opinionated –and that is just what was needed to be a good debater.

In the competition we managed to beat the fancied girls team from STIPRI and the junior team from Maktab Sains- one of the top schools in the country. These two victories sent tremors through the debating world. How could lowly Menglait have managed this?

The answer was they had a damn good speaking coach. He  was an Aussie with a very outgoing and engaging personality . The students loved him. I did the organization. kelped prepare the speeches, and made sure that the practices happened, but but he  was the leader in the coaching area. The third student member of the team  had a Portuguese mother. She  was only a junior but she was very articulate. She also happened to be one of the boy's  ‘unofficial’ girlfriend (‘couples’ were frowned upon in this Islamic culture). But this meant that where one went the other followed-which helped a lot with attendance at the practices. We got to the quarter-finals against the strongly fancied St. George’s private school. This event was to be televised and everyone at Menglait was very excited.

On the day we easily won. Our arguments had been ably prepared by another debating teacher and myself and myself and the kids delivered them with enthusiasm and skill. St. George’s, our opponents, were clearly aghast at the skill of our team and more or less rolled over and took their medicine.

The only problem was the judges didn’t see it this way! They awarded the debate to St.Georges-much to everyone’s surprise-including the St. Georges team!

To my surprise our students were very sporting about the result -much more sporting than I was. I admired the attitude of our students but was absolutely livid with the judges! But I managed to control myself  and said nothing.

As a result of our performance in this competition both our boys were chosen to represent Brunei in the international competition in Singapore. But disaster was to strike! Because they were a ‘couple’ the powers that be felt they would not be good representatives for Brunei and the girls was ‘pulled’ from the competition-not the boy, of course! The woman always gets the blame. I was amazed at the equanimity with which the students handled this news. But I was furious yet again! It wasn’t the last time I would be furious in the debating arena.

The following year we won the competition with the help of a very promising chinese Malay debater . She had been in my first form class and was a top Menglait student academically. However her main strength, which was to stand her in good stead was her character. She was tenacious, cooperative, cheerful and had very good manners. 

 In a future year , at another school, as coach,  won the Senior Debating competition. We had one outstanding debater called Jasmin who could write everyone else’s speech aswell as her own. She was the only student I ever coached in Brunei who could write her own speeches.

I
The chinese Malay debater was a wonderful student and went on to get a scholarship from Menglait to do her International Baccalaureate at the International school of Brunei. This scholarship was given by an unknown benefactor and was extremely generous: not only did it include fees for the IB program but it included fees and living expenses to any University in the world!

She did very well and she was offered a small scholarship by Liverpool University to do bioengineering.

Just before she sat the I.B. exams she was stunned to be told that her scholarship had been withdrawn without any reason being offered by the sponsor: (Sunlit Advertising!) Not only did the scholarship cover University fees and maintenance, but even the fees to sit the IB exams themselves(about 1000 dollars). The family were not well-off and were unable to support her.

she was chinese Malay and therefore the Malay sponsor has withdrawn the money

What was interesting to me was the way she handled this news: the first thing she did was to cover up the whole incident, and lie about it.

“ Oh, I didn’t quite get the required grade sir –I got 33 instead of 34” she told me.

This later turned out to be false. The Bruneian instinct appears to be to lie in order to cover up everything –even if it is not their fault. Indeed, she was covering for Sunlit Advertising who had behaved shamefully towards her! Where is the logic in that?

“Oh I’ll be ok sir, I just want to put it behind me” she said

Even more shameful was the behaviour of the International school which made her pay even the 1000 dollars for the IB exams! So, instead of receiving the scholarship offered to Liverpool University she had to work in town to earn the money over the next several months to pay the fees for the IB exams. This was shabbly and weak of ISB.

What was even more interesting to me was the change in attitude when I next met her a few months later. Now she was bitter but much more open about criticising those involved.

But only when it was too late!

She ended up going to UBD.