Registrations are now open:
English: https://forms.gle/svD2RD6U6yNgs4cs5
Urdu: https://forms.gle/HVzrZuYS1AVZtFpF8

The University College Association of Debaters (UCAD) cordially invites you to the 18th Shahjiwana International Debating Championship 2020 being held from Thursday, 30th January 2020, to Sunday, 2nd February 2020, at the University College Lahore, Lahore, Pakistan.

Over two decades old and hosting more than 180 teams consecutively for the past three years (in English and Urdu collectively), Shahjiwana is Pakistan’s biggest and oldest British Parliamentary Style Debating Competition. For the past 15 years the competition has transformed into an international event with teams participating from India, Afghanistan, Srilanka and Bangladesh.

This year’s event promises to be the best and biggest yet, with special changes to ensure debating of the highest quality and caliber.

General Tournament Information:

The tournament will be held from Thursday, 30th January , 2020 to Sunday, 2nd February, 2020 (a detailed schedule will be uploaded by the end of the first week of January).

The tournament will follow the British Parliamentary Format.

The tournament will be Bi-lingual (i.e. in English and in Urdu).

Private Teams (Individuals who are not currently enrolled in any Educational Institute, Individual who study in different Educational Institutes or a team where one member is enrolled and one isn't) are allowed to register and participate.

Students who are enrolled in University College Lahore are not legible to register and participate.

The tournament will be following a very strict N (Number of Teams) = N - 1 (Number of Adjudicators) adjudication policy.

Teams have to ensure that their adjudicators are available for the Adjudication Workshop and Test on Thursday, 6th February, 2020, as well all preliminary rounds, failure to comply to which will result in a team being deemed ineligible to participate and/or being deactivated in that particular preliminary round.

There will be separate breaks in the Open Category, the Novice Category (to be eligible for this category, both speakers must not have broken into the knockout stages at any local debating tournament, including any previous novice category) and the Under 19 Category (to be eligible for this category both speakers need to be 19 years old or younger on 30th January , 2020).

The size of the break will be determined after the close of the registration deadline once we have an idea of the number of teams registered.

Although there is no cap to the number of teams any one Educational Institute can register, the Organisation Committee reserves the right to place secondary teams of an Institution on a waitlist in order to accommodate Institutions with a single team (first priority) or Private Teams (second priority) in case the team cap is full.

In case of two students in a team enrolled within the same Educational Institute, the team will be considered a part of the Educational Institute's Delegation and not be allowed registered as a Private Team (for the purposes of evading the N-1 adjudication policy), although they may be allowed to change their team name for the purposes of the tab, specifically the suffix after the Educational Institute Name.