Arched-rivals pit their arguments at Sunway University

Malaysian students from two oldest universities in the United Kingdom, University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge, enthralled the audience recently in a debate hosted by Sunway University. The topic of the day was “The house believes that university education should be free.”

The speakers from University of Cambridge, Loo Han Rong, Ian Beh and Shawn Tan stood by the argument, education should be free while Shivy Siva, Jish Lim and Halian Fadzli Shah from University of Oxford vetoed the argument. Both teams raised strong points to support their arguments but the team from Cambridge emerged winners and walked away with the Goh Cheng Teik Cup.

(From left to right) Ian Halsall, Loo Han Rong, Ian Beh and Shawn Tan with Tan Sri Dr Lin See Yan and Dato’ Dr Goh Cheng Teik.

Tan Sri Dr Lin See Yan, Chief Adjudicator of the debate and President of Harvard Club Malaysia said, “Selecting the best speaker is independent of the team that won. On each team, they had a personality that was different from the other. Both individuals did well, but they appeal to different people. So, we have identified two individuals, Loo Han Rong, who was cool and calculative and Jish Lim, who was the politician and decided that they both deserved to be best speakers.”

This is the fourth time consecutively that Sunway is hosting the debate between the arched-rival universities. The Debate in the past has always attracted huge local audience due to the august status of the universities.

Loo Han Rong (left) and Jish Lim (right) won best speakers at the debate.

Tan Sri Dr Lin See Yan was part of the panel of judges alongside Mrs Margaret Kaloo, Founder and CEO of elc International School and Mrs Ruma Lopes, Assistant Director, Pre-University Studies, Sunway College.

Sunway University, the Cambridge University Malaysia Society, Oxford University Malaysia Club and the Oxford & Cambridge Society Malaysia have an established relationship of more than two decades. One of the undertakings between Sunway University and Oxford & Cambridge Society Malaysia is to provide Sunway students with an opportunity to take part in their activities.

Senior Executive Director of Sunway Education Group, Elizabeth Lee said, “Debating is one of the many important activities held at these top-notch universities. Both the Cambridge and Oxford unions are famed for their high quality and scintillating debates. It is a platform for students and members to talk about issues and the grooming of many leaders of the world. The topics of these debates can vary. It could be on a very menial issue but most importantly it is how students articulate the facts, exhibit their thought process, organise the method of presentation, clarity of the message presented, impactful content, mannerism and so forth.”

Among those present were 240 students from the Sunway Pre-University programmes; A-Level, Australian Matriculation Programme (AUSMAT), Foundation in Arts (FIA), Monash University Foundation Year (MUFY) and Sunway International School (SIS), 40 secondary school students from SMK (Perempuan) Pudu and 30 students from various other secondary schools in the Klang Valley.