By Ainu Shafira
GOMBAK, 14 December 2018- International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) has been crowned as champion in the Pertandingan Pidato Antarabangsa Bahasa Melayu 2018 (PABM) or the International Malay Language Elocution contest held last week from 3 until 9 December at Sultan Zainal Abidin University (UniSZA) in Terengganu.
IIUM emerged first place in the ˜Alam Melayu category which was represented by Syahmi Aqif who is the President of IIUM Debate Club 2017/2018. The category involved five countries – Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and Brunei. The objective of PABM 2018 competition is to uphold Malay language in the global rank.
“Actually, this is my first time being involved in speech contest because before this I was involved in debate. Speech contest and debate are two really two different categories,” said Syahmi Akif.
He continued, œPABM is a prestigious competition not only in terms of the amount of money which is about RM 10, 000 but the trophy itself has real prestige. It’s a very long and hard way for me to achieve the trophy. For sure, it is a lie if I were to say no tears were shed on winning the contest, but hard work will never betray you.
œI hope that students will use the platform which is more formal, and brave yourself in order to sharpen the mind and increase confidence compared with using social media platform only, which most of it is just covering behind the typing fingers and not coming out to convey the idea openly, he said.
PABM Competition 2018 was organised by Majlis Debat Universiti Malaysia (MADUM) in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and the Higher Education Department. ***