Organisers of the upcoming Dare2Debate competition in Lagos have called on education stakeholders to encourage students to freely engage with controversial issues, warning that limiting expression in schools could undermine academic integrity and critical thinking.
Team lead at HACmedia, Davies Ikpoyi, who is coordinating the event set to feature six secondary schools on December 13, said schools must rethink how classroom environments are structured if students are to develop confidence in expressing challenging viewpoints.
“There’s a range of innovative approaches that I think schools should be willing to think about,” he said. “Let’s think about, for instance, what’s the geography of a classroom. It might be something as simple as that. Or it might be asking people to write essays defending views they actively dislike or even detest.”
Ikpoyi also stressed that his years of experience as a debate coordinator show that students must be encouraged “not to feel scared to raise subjects or put forward points of view that people might find difficult, offensive, shocking, or disturbing.”
He noted that some of the most pressing societal issues ranging from abortion, euthanasia to immigration and race, require open dialogue rather than avoidance.
“When it comes to really important matters, whether life-or-death or deeply moral issues, it’s crucial that people feel free to discuss them,” he said. “Even when they don’t endorse certain views, they should be free to examine them. Otherwise, we can’t have a proper conversation.”
Debate, he added, remains one of the most effective tools for strengthening students’ comprehension, critical thinking, and presentation skills. It exposes them to diverse fields, from biotechnology to nuclear proliferation helping them discover their intellectual passions.
However, Ikpoyi lamented that lack of institutional support has made debate largely accessible only to private schools with stronger research resources and real-time coaching, creating an uneven playing field for public school students.
To bridge this gap, Dare2Debate, an initiative of Lagos-based multimedia firm HACmedia, aims to democratise access to debate training and competitive platforms. Backed by the Lagos State Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education, the competition is fast emerging as one of Nigeria’s most credible youth engagement programmes.
Dare2Debate takes place on December 13, 2025.
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