The New Zealand Schools’ Debating Council is pleased to announce the appointment of Clodagh O’Connor-McKenna and Udayan Mukherjee as Co-Coaches of the 2011 Russell McVeagh New Zealand Schools’ Debating Team for the World Schools’ Debating Championships in Cape Town, South Africa, in January 2012.
Clodagh coached the 2009 New Zealand Schools Debating Team which reached the quarter-finals of the 2010 World Schools’ Debating Champs in Qatar. She also has an outstanding record as a coach on a national level. Regional teams she has coached have won the National Championships on three occasions (2007, 2009 and 2010) and in 2008 a team were runners-up. Clodagh is a former winner of the New Zealand Schools’ Debating Championships herself (in 2004).
Udayan has most recently been the assistant coach of the 2011 NZ Team which competed in Dundee in August this year. He has coached regional teams at the National Champs for the last three years (Hawke’s Bay in 2009 and 2010, and Wellington in 2011), and was an adjudicator for New Zealand on the Russell McVeagh International Tour earlier this year. He won the Australasian Intervarsity Debating Championships in both 2010 and 2011.
The Council wishes Clodagh and Udayan and the NZ Team all the best for the World Champs in Cape Town.
