Being one of the youngest extracurricular in Canisius, CEF (Canisius English Forum) was established in the late 1999. It was founded by a group of students who saw a significant need for Canisius to have a debate forum, seing how in that time, debating was proliferating rapidly. First, it was to be named Canisius English Debating. But Mr. Hartono as the home-teacher suggested it to be named Canisius English Forum, for this extracurricular to vary in other English-based activities.
CEF has one objective to proliferate debate among high school students, particularly Canisius students. The kind of debate that CEF uses is not random debate with people shouting at each other like those wee see in everyday life. Here, CEF uses Parliamentary debate which requires high-leveled intelligent and deep analysis through social issues. That is why CEF members are all aware of the social and political issues that this world has.
Although the main activity is Parliamentary Debate (using Asian Parliamentary system), CEF also endorsed other activities such as Presenting Ideas, Storytelling, and Spelling Bees. Those other activities’ members are not big in quantity, but great in quality. This has been proven by CEF’s members’ achievements in those fields. It includes National Leveled Achievements on Presenting Ideas, Storytelling, and Spelling Bees.
As a prove of dedication towards promoting debate and free speech among high school students, CEF has successfully held its own English competition which is called Canisius English Competition (CEC). The latest one was held at early 2007. This competition consist of debate, storytelling, presenting ideas, and news board competition. It was a prestigious competition, where the winners got to go to Britain, and Singapore.
Although one of the youngest, CEF is not lack of achievements. There are many nationwide leveled achievements that CEF has, especially in debating. But the highest of all, is CEF’s success in sending one of Indonesia’s delegates in the World Schools Debating Championship. In 2003, team Indonesia accomplished its greatest achievement ever, ranked 11th among other countries in the world. Putu from Canisius was the team captain at that time. In 2004, Putu was re-chosen to represent team Indonesia in WSDC 2004, and Indonesia reached the octo-final. In 2006, Kevin Kristian from Canisius was one of the delegates, and the team was ranked 19th in the world. Although there were no Canisius student in the 2007 team, Yosef Galih from Canisius went to WSDC 2007 as an observer.
That is why CEF will keep on fighting to promote free-speech and debating, and promised to keep its role as a major player in the world of Indonesian Debating. Thus, we hope to improve our abilities and be useful for Canisius.