Tournament Overview
The IDC is an International Debating Competition primarily involving schools from the Australasian and Asia-Pacific regions, yet extending across continents to include participants from the African continent and the Middle East. Participation in the IDC allows students to develop their speaking skills, analytical ability, confidence, and general knowledge while engaging with contextually relevant topics.
Debates are held online via Zoom on Friday nights during Term 4 of the New South Wales school term. The tournament consists of four preliminary rounds, followed by an additional two to four elimination rounds, depending on the category size.
The competition opens to students from years 5 to 10 with the following three divisions:
- Primary Divison: Year 5-6 or Ages 9-11
- Junior Division: Year 7-8 or Ages 12-14
- Senior Division: Year 9-10 or Ages 15-16
Each debating team should have a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 4 members. Under special circumstances and with the IDC office’s approval, teams may have more than 4 members.
Timings1
Preliminary Rounds
| Division | Prep Time | Length of Prep | Debate Time |
| Primary | 5:00 PM | 60 MIN | 6:00 PM |
| Junior | 6:15 PM | 45 MIN | 7:00 PM |
| Senior | 7:15 PM | 45 MIN | 8:00 PM |
Elimination Rounds2
| Division | Prep Time | Length of Prep | Debate Time |
| Primary | 5:00 PM | 60 MIN | 6:00 PM |
| Junior | 6:15 PM | 45 MIN | 7:00 PM |
| Senior | 6:15 PM | 45 MIN | 7:00 PM |
- IDC is running in Australia Eastern Daylight Time(UTC+11). Timings are displayed in AEDT ↩︎
- The Elimination Rounds consist of Octo-Finals, Quarter-Finals, Semi-Finals, and Grand Finals where Octo-Finals and Quarter-Finals will be held back to back on the same night; Semi-Finals and Grand Finals will be held back to back on the same night.
Depending on the division size, some divisions may progress directly to the Semi-Finals. The division will have a bye week if this happens. ↩︎
Debate Format
The IDC follows a traditional 3v3 debate format wherein there are 3 speakers per team, plus an optional silent fourth speaker acting as a team advisor. The First Affirmative speaker begins the debate and is then followed by the First Negative speaker. This pattern is maintained for the second and third speakers of each team.
Points of information (POI) and reply speeches are not applicable in this debate format.
At the conclusion of the debate, an adjudicator will deliver an oral adjudication to announce the winner and then provide feedback to both teams.
Speaking Times
| Division | Speaking Time |
| Primary | 2-4 mins speaking time |
| Junior | 3-5 mins speaking time |
| Senior | 4-6 mins speaking time |
A continuous bell will ring if the speaker exceeds the maximum time by more than 30 seconds.
Topics
Each round of the competition has a distinct “topic area,” and the topic areas for preliminary rounds will be announced before the season begins to help teams prepare thoroughly, enabling them to engage with greater confidence and bring depth and complexity to their arguments when the debate takes place.
Topics for each round will be released via the online draw tabulation system, ‘Tabbycat,’ immediately before the preparation time specified in the ‘Timings’ section. Depending on their division, teams will have 45 to 60 minutes of preparation time to develop their case and speeches without assistance from the internet or their coaches.
At IDC, we take pride in offering teams unique and innovative topics year after year. Topic selection is undertaken with careful consideration, and we do not involve anyone outside the Adjudication Core in generating or approving these topics.
Draws
At IDC, we use “TabbyCat”—an online tournament software to create the draw. The tabulation link for each division will be sent by email from the IDC Tournament Coordinator no later than one week before the start date.
The draw with finalized team match-ups will be available on the Wednesday of each round week (AEDT). Matchups will be randomly decided based on each team’s win rate, with consideration given to whether teams have previously debated each other.