The Government College University Lahore Debating Society has once again showed its extracurricular excellence as it bagged 270 national oratory awards during the academic year 2015-16. The 270 laurels include 50 coveted team trophies, 9 runners-up trophies, 2 third-position trophies, 93 best speaker awards, 65 second-position awards, 48 third-position and 3 consolation prizes, which were won at various declamation, parliamentary, recitation and poetry competitions at the national level.
"The speakers of GCUDS have always shown their mettle time and again in English, Urdu and Punjabi languages. This year, however, the society took special initiatives to promote languages like Saraiki and Pashto by introducing internal competition as well as winning national level awards in the respective regional languages," read the GCUDS academic year 2015-16 report submitted to Vice Chancellor Professor Dr Hassan Amir Shah on Tuesday.
Professor Shah invited the advisor and the orators of GCUDS to his office where he congratulated and commended the young speakers for their active participation and dedication. He applauded their efforts to promote the importance of co-curricular activities in addition to the conventional curriculum and promised to be highly supportive so the society can continue to play a crucial role in shaping intellectual landscape of students.
"The GCUDS outshined every other institute in Pakistan in both declamation and parliamentary style of debate," GCUDS Advisor Siddique Awan told the Vice Chancellor. The high achievers in parliamentary debates include M. Afzan Munir, Awais Ahmad Malik, Shahkar Ali Bukhari, Hasan Haider Raza. The team comprising Raza Gillani, Hassan Qadeer Butt and Hamza Abbas won almost every major Urdu tournament of the year. The speakers who excelled in declamations include Mohiba Ahmed, Zain-ul-Hassan, Ali Zar, Saad Khan, Usama Khan, Abdullah Zafar, Qasim Raza, Haris Ali Virk, Abdul Rahim Virk and Jovairiah Batool. Kafeel Rana, a student of Psychology department, proved to be the highest achiever in declamations this year. The young Ravian poets Usama Zoraiz, Muhammad Ali Zaahir, Fahad Mehmood and Zohaib Alam excelled in various national level poetry competitions.
Awan further said that the Ravian orators this year stamped their seal of competence at the prestigious educational institutions all over Pakistan including PAF Academy Risalpur, FCC University Lahore, Scouts Cadet College Batrasi, Lahore School of Economics, University College Lahore, University of Gujrat, University of Sargodha, Sadiq Public School Bhawalpur, UET Lahore, King Edward Medical University, Allama Iqbal Medical College.
The society also managed to win an overwhelming amount of 52 positions in the CM Speech, Debate and Essay writing competitions. The President GCUDS, Muhammad Afzan Munir, attributed the successful year to the unflinching support and patronage of the Vice Chancellor and their advisors Awan and Professor' Dr Haroon Qadir who not only helped arrange state-of-the-art trainings, but also provided funds for the debating trips to represent GCU at the national events.