School of Tomorrow by BSS Pakistan

Fakhir Shah and Omair Rana recently participated in the School for Tomorrow; a festival of ideas, discussion and debate by the Beaconhouse School System in Lahore.

The Beaconhouse Group has around 284,000 full time students in eight countries and is possibly the largest school network of its kind in the world. The 3-day festival hosted more than 50 activities like conferences, debates, workshops, keynote speeches, panel discussions attended and contributed to by the crème de la crème of Pakistan.

Omair Rana participated as a debater opposing the motion “We need Zero Guns in Campus”, as well as moderated 6 debating events with distinguished speakers from a wide spectrum of fields.  Omair argued that although principally the motion is valid, however, considering the security situation in Pakistan, it is essential to have weapons on campus for protection of innocent lives. Each situation therefore requires our prudent judgment and not a sweeping view of the issue.

Fakhir Shah spoke against ‘Moral policing is not part of the Teacher’s Job’. His key argument was that we are prejudiced with the term ‘policing’ because of our experience and perception of the police department as that of being corrupt. We therefore discard the entire argument whereas in reality policing refers to ‘protecting, watching over, guiding’. He further said a teacher’s job as a leader is to produce an excellent human beings, which cannot be possible without the individual having moral virtues. The leadership role requires care and growth of the student which entails courage and firmness.

Both Omair and Fakhir won their debates at the event and were appreciated by the audience for their arguments.