At the appreciation lunch hosted by the then President Cham Tao Soon
L-R : Yours truly, Richard Pereira, Philip Lim, Sukdeep Singh, Jaspal Singh.
I'm digging up the past I must admit. After I finished my National Service committments from 1981 - 1983, I pursued the undergraduate course at the National University of Singapore from July 1983 - June 1987.
During those salad days, I was fortunate to represent the Nanyang Technological Institute (which was then the Engineering arm of the National University of Singapore) twice, once in 1984 and the second time in 1986 for the TV debates for tertiary institutions. The debates were held in front of live audience of 200 students, undergraduates and members of public and the telecasts were shown 1 week later on the then Channel 12.
In the 1984 series, we reached the semi-finals before losing to NUS Team 1 the eventual winners. In 1986, we beat 2 teams, firstly the National Institute of Education and then the NUS Team 1 in the semi-finals. We emerged as runners up in the 1986 series of televised debates.
In the 1984 series, we reached the semi-finals before losing to NUS Team 1 the eventual winners. In 1986, we beat 2 teams, firstly the National Institute of Education and then the NUS Team 1 in the semi-finals. We emerged as runners up in the 1986 series of televised debates.
My father (see below picture) who was then 65 years of age, was a very enthusiastic advisor, as he gave us plenty of debating tips as a successful practising lawyer in criminal, and subsequently corporate law, and was managing his own law firm Abisheganaden and Company, Our chef de mission was a Dr Koh Moy Yin, and we had help from several other lecturers such as Dr Stanley Richardson and Prof Koo Sai Kee.During the course of our preperations for each stage of the competition, we had the privilege of interviewing Dr Chan Heng Chee, and Dr. Paul Koh (Chief Statistician).
Geoffrey Abisheganaden circa 1985
We prepared very hard and enthusiastically for both sets of debates, reaching the semi-finals for the 1984 series and the finals for the 1986 series. I believe we helped put NTI on the map as engineering undergraduates were then not known to be outspoken and fluent in the cut and thrust of intellectual debates - something which was more the domain of law undergraduates.
The other tertiary institutes which took part were the Singapore Polytechnic 1 and 2, Ngee Ann Polytechnic 1 and 2 , The National Institute of Education (NIE), NUS teams 1 and 2 and NTI.
I was chosen to be the first speaker, followed by Richard Pereira, Philip Lim and Jaspal Singh.
For the record, for the 1986 series, although we did not win the overall best team title, we (NTI) team won the best speaker for the night (Philip Lim)l, and Best Speaker for the series Jaspal Singh. We beat the NIE team in the preliminaries, the NUS Team 2 in the semi-finals (which was a major shock to the premier university) and finally took on NUS Team 1 in the finals.
Truly, a tremendous accolade for a then only 3 years old academic institution of higher learning !
Carpe Diem.
No comments:
Post a Comment