The project solves the formal education system's lack of focus on critical thinking, media literacy, and active citizenship. It aims to disseminate the debate methodology in Moravian schools Moravia (east Czechia), because the competitive debate develops the critical thinking skills and democratic values of its participants as proven by several studies. The project will introduce tournaments and trainings in the region as well as methodological support for new and existing debate clubs.

Moravia, east Czechia

The support of the extremist and populist political parties among young people in Czechia’s peripheries keeps growing as the Student Elections and other polls suggest. Moreover, the Behavio’s research has proven that they tend to distrust the democratic institutions including the elections itself.
It is caused by the the lack of knowledge of the democratic processes and possibilities of the civic engagement. The secondary reason is the ever growing amount of information spread by both the traditional and alternative media as well as the social networks. (Up to 80 % of Czech high school students struggles to distinguish between trustworthy and fake news.) The formal education system’s lack of focus on the critical thinking and media literacy is the common cause of both of these issues.

The main beneficiaries of this project are the participants of the debate program, they split into 2 groups:
1) The debaters are Moravian high school students and we plan to reach up to 300 of them directly throughout the project. They will actively participate in the debates during the tournaments, moreover they will undergo the long term preparation in their regular debate club meetings. Thus, they will develop their critical thinking skills and civic competences as explained above.
2) The trainers and judges are teachers and university students who will coach the debate clubs and thus spread the debate methodology. We plan to organize trainings for about 50 of them to improve their teaching skills and their knowledge of the methodology.

The project will start with a preparatory phase during Nov-Dec 2020, when the project coordinator and methodologist will start creating the list of schools in the region, contacting them and offering the trainings. In Jan, the first trainings for students and teachers will be held (a weekend event). Meanwhile, part of the new debate clubs should be established and the project methodologist will visit them to support the trainers. During the first half of the year, two tournaments will be organised (Mar and May).
Similar approach will be implemented after the summer break: training in September and debate tournaments in November and December. The project coordinator will continue approaching schools and prospective teachers in order to found new debate clubs.

The goals of this project project are very straightforward - to increase the number of participants of the debate program in Moravia. Specifically to reach 300 high school students and 50 teachers or university students. At the same time we will try to increase the number of active debate clubs to 20 in order to ensure the sustainability of the project.
To demonstrate the impact of the project and debating as a whole, we will ask the participants to undergo European Values Survey. They will be sitting this test during their first debate training and then once again 10 months later during a tournament. Comparing the results should prove the development achieved by their participation in the debate program.

Participation in the debate program strongly develops the critical thinking skills and civic engagement as proven by the Untangling Debate by Anja Šerc. Similar results including the increased support of the democratic values among debaters were shown in the study executed by 8 european debate organizations including the Czech Debate Association (https://journals.muni.cz/socialni_studia/article/view/11461). According to our experience, we claim the participants and alumni of the debate program share their values among their peer groups and families.
The competitive debate is a “duel” in argumentation and rhetorics. Two teams of 3 students are trying to convince the judge that their argumentation supporting a controversial motion is better than their opponents’.

The Czech Debate Association organizes the high school debate program for more than 20 years and strives to spread to as many cities and schools around the country as possible. At this stage of its existence, it is at the beginning of a new development phase when the current voluntary basis won’t be sufficient any more. As the experience from other countries (such as Slovakia, Croatia or Estonia) suggest, professionalization of the organization’s management leads to an unprecedented improvement of its reach and level of services. This project thus may start the new era of the Czech Debate Association with professional leadership coordination the debate program development in Moravia.

personnel costs 20 000 EUR
travel costs 2 400 EUR
debate tournaments and trainings (accommodation and meals costs) 19 600 EUR

We would really appreciate some feedback on the clarity of our project. As we know, debating is not an activity much known to the general public and thus explaining it's benefits on such a short range is always challenging.