The format work in this debate competition is Asian Parliamentary. This format work as follows:
- There are 2 teams debating, each consists of 3 (three) debater who would be 1st, 2nd, 3rd, speakers of the team.
- One team shall be the Government/Affirmative side, the side agreeing the motion, and the other side shall be the opposition/negative side, the side disagreeing with the motion.
- Each speaker will delivers a substantial speech of 8 (eight) minutes in duration, with the affirmative going first. Afterwards, either the 1st, or 2ndspeaker on both sides will deliver the reply speech of 4 (four) minutes in duration, with the negative going first.
- Thus, the complete order of speaking during a debate is as follow:1st Aff à 1st neg à 2nd Aff à 2nd Neg à 3rd Aff à 3rd Neg à reply Neg à reply Aff
| AFFIRMATIVE TEAM | NEGATIVE TEAM |
| 1st Speaker8 minutes |
1st Speaker8 minutes
2nd speaker8 minutes
2nd Speaker8 minutes
3rd Speaker8 minutes
3rd Speaker8 minutes
Reply speaker(1st/2nd speaker – 4 minutes)Reply speaker(1st/2nd speaker – 4 minutes)
- In a substantive speech, members of the opposing team are allowed to give an interruption, called points of Information (POI), to the speaker delivering the speech. POIs may be delivered between the 1stand 7th minutes of the 8 minutes speech.
minutes 0 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th
POIs not Allowed POIs Allowed POIs not Allowed
a. No POIs are allowed in a reply speech
b. The speaker has full authority to accept or reject a POI
- A time keeper shall signal the time. There will be one knock at the end of the 1st and 7th minutes, to signal the starting and ending time for POI. And two knock at the 8th minutes to signal the delivery time for the speech has ended. Any debater speaking before 7 minutes shall be considered under-time and his/her points could be reduced. Any debater speaking after 8 minutes 30 seconds shall be considered overtime and his/her points could be reduced as well.
- For reply speeches, there will be on knock at the 3rd minutes, to signal that delivery time is almost over, and two knocks at the 4th minutes.
- Every debate shall be judged by an odd number of judge and only the judges shall decide who wins the debate (there is no draw in the result of a debate)
- In Indonesian, every team is given 30 minutes preparation time after the motion is released and before the debate begins. During this preparation time, teams are not allowed to get help from anybody (be it coaches, teacher, parent, or friend) or use laptop, PDAs, or any other communication device.
Motion :
- This House believe that religious lesson should not be taught in school
- This House believe that gambling of all form should be made illegal
- This House believe that politician should only be allowed to serve in office for a limited period of time
- This house would legalize abortion
- This house would not legalize Gay-marriage
