New Zealand Schools’ Debating

The first regional championship was held in Nelson on Saturday 17 March. After a long day of debating Nayland College won the Bioethics Final affirming the topic ‘This House believes that parents should be able to design their children’. For a full report on the day please visit our Nelson/Marlborough Regional page.

Biotechnologies such as genetic modification, genetic testing, cloning and stem cell research are significant areas of research both in New Zealand and internationally. While these developments promise to bring benefits to areas such as healthcare and economic development, they also significantly challenge current ways of understanding nature and who we are as humans, and raise serious questions about the type of world we want to live in now and in the future. One of the challenges is how we go about constructively resolving these questions.

The New Zealand Schools’ Debating Council is pleased to announce that Toi te Taiao: the Bioethics Council have agreed to become regional partners. The role of the Bioethics Council is to promote public dialogue about the issues raised by biotechnology, and partnering with the New Zealand Schools’ Debating Council is one way of doing just that.

At each Regional Championship across the country this year there will be a topic focused on the questions raised by a biotechnology.

For more information on the work of the Bioethics Council and on the issues that you might be debating visit www.bioethics.org.nz.

The Resources section of the website has been updated, and now includes a copy of the 2007 New Zealand Schools’ Debating Championships Brochure. Also added are links to the Lion Foundation and Pub Charity who provide financial support for the coaching of the Nelson/Marlborough Regional Team and the Northland Regional Team respectively.