Students from Serbia among world's top speakers

BELGRADE - Students of the Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Belgrade, Helena Ivanov and Stefan Siridzanski have been named the world's third and fourth top speakers in the English as the second language category at the World Universities Debating Championship in Malaysia.

Viktor Prlja, a student of the Belgrade Faculty of Organizational Sciences, was declared the seventh best speaker of the world, the Open Communications organization has announced.

More than 800 students from 93 countries took part in the competition, and in addition to Helena Ivanov and Stefan Siridzanski, Serbia was also represented by two teams - Marija Simic and Viktor Prlja of the Faculty of Organizational Sciences and Djordje Jovicevic, a student of Belgrade Faculty of Political Sciences, and Jovan Petronijevic of the Belgrade College of Business Economics and Entrepreneurship.

One of the judges in the competition was Marko Cirovic, an assistant at the Faculty of Organizational Sciences.
Helena Ivanov and Stefan Siridzanski made a historic success by reaching the semifinals of the open category, where they were the only team from continental Europe, which competed against students from Harvard, Sydney and Melbourne universities.

They started the competition in a lower category of the English as the second language, but after defeating the teams from Oxford, Columbia, Harvard and others, for the first time in the history of contests, they managed to enter the open category semifinals.

Although they have not reached the finals, this achievement is an important incentive for all speakers in the world where English is not the native tongue to believe that they can compete with students from the best universities.

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