LOCAL students recently made history – becoming the first-ever South African team to win the French inter-university debate tournament.
It was hosted by the Agence Universitaire de la Francophone (AUF), one of the largest associations of higher education and research institutions in the world founded nearly 60 years ago.
The local students beat the competing team from the University of Paris II Panthéon Assas, in Mauritius, which consisted entirely of mother-tongue speakers.
The team that took part in the 7th Inter-University Debate Tournament in French (TIUD7) came about through the collaborative efforts of the French sections from Stellenbosch University and UCT.
Jaco du Plooy, a lecturer and MA student from the Modern Foreign Languages Department in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at SU, bore team leadership responsibilities.
Joining him were honours students in French, Willow-Ruby van der Berg (SU) and Mia Todd (UCT).
The debate, held in the Indian Ocean Region of the AUF, focused on social innovation and development.
“At first, the fact that the tournament was conducted entirely in French, was our biggest stressor, because we had to also do all our research in French. We got French news articles as far as possible, but we also wanted to bring in the South African context with our examples in order to give it a more global feel that linked with local issues too,” said Du Plooy.
The competition was extended to a few non-Francophone countries this year, which allowed South Africa to participate for the first time.
“It was Prof Catherine du Toit, the Chair of the Modern Foreign Languages Department and Vice-Dean of the Faculty who encouraged us to sign up. She was also the one that coached and guided us through the process,” said Du Plooy.
“It still feels surreal to think that we not only had the opportunity to take part in an international French debate but that we actually won it,” said Van der Berg.
In the first “live” online round of the tournament, the team had to produce a video discussing Social innovation: Does it bring efficient answers to social economic and environmental problems? That was followed by three live rounds, where each team who made it through to the next round were informed two hours after the debate and presented with a new topic to discuss in the next round the following day.
The second round focused on the institutionalisation of social innovations: Is it synonymous with the disengagement/withdrawal of the State, with the SU-UCT team arguing against.
The third and final round focused on Social innovation as a long lasting and sustainable answer: Is it just a short answer to a problem or can it be sustainable in the long-term?
The other South African participating university, University of Kwazulu-Natal (UKZN), were eliminated in the preliminary round.