BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
An ambitious co-curricular programme is quite affordable for schools and colleges of all kinds. Sta...

An ambitious co-curricular programme is quite affordable for schools and colleges of all kinds. State schools in Singapore and many public universities in the USA are able to offer strong co-curriculums, and elsewhere many state-funded institutions have thriving extra-curricular activities. Most co-curricular pursuits are not expensive to run, and those activities that might be more expensive, such as military cadet groups and science clubs, can often apply to outside agencies for funding. Staff often given their time free, because they believe the activities are worthwhile for the students and enjoyable for themselves to run, and many groups can also be supported by unpaid volunteers from the wider community.
Many towns today do not have a strong civil society, and in more rural areas there may be no groups ...

Many towns today do not have a strong civil society, and in more rural areas there may be no groups at all for young people to join outside school. If schools and colleges do not provide opportunities for youngsters to broaden their experiences, then students will not get them at all. Boosting the place of the co-curriculum in schools is one way of addressing this weakness in modern society, as it will equip young people with the civic spirit, initiative and organising skills to set up their own clubs, teams and activity groups when they leave education. Finally, a successful co-curriculum often depends on building links between the school and the wider community, bringing local enthusiasts in to work with students, and sending students out to work on community projects, help in primary schools, perform for local audiences, etc.
Co-curricular activities prepare students practically for the future. The normal curriculum can only...

The academic curriculum is really much more important and must continue to be given more status in schools and colleges than the co-curriculum. Students are meant to be receiving an education and gaining recognised qualifications. Higher Education institutions place a greater importance on the curriculum than the co-curriculum when selecting students, and so do employers. Co-curricular activities are nice, but they have never been shown to actually play a vital role in a student’s life. And if they distract students from focusing on their academic qualifications, then they could be actually harmful.
Most co-curricular activities are physically active, getting the student out from behind their desk ...

There is no obvious logic in having super talented individuals, instead society should lean itself towards making specialised individuals in their selected fields. Most modern careers require expert knowledge and skills, which can take years to acquire. We should not distract a student from developing skills in whatever selected field he or she has chosen to specialise in. After all, when you see a doctor or employ an engineer, you are not interested in how “well-rounded” they are, just in whether they are good at their job. And the Prime Minister does not play soccer or tango in the House of the Commons, therefore they do not require such skills as part of their formal education.
Having a wide range of experiences prepares people better for the future, especially in today’s unce...

Most specialist professions still provide a range of career opportunities, without any need to compromise academic education by over-emphasis on non-academic activities. For example, athletes who have been injured in mishaps can continue their career in the same field but just in a different post. No longer could they play, but they could still coach or even give sports science lectures to aspiring super stars. And if someone does wish to radically switch career in mid-life, there are plenty of evening classes and continuing education opportunities to allow them to retrain.
Students have a right to a broad education. Why should a science student have to give up music, or ...

Choice works two ways. If co-curricular activities are so good, then students should have right to choose whether they wish to pursue them, rather than forcing them to give equal importance to something they do not wish to do. Through equalising the demands of academic and co-curriculums there exists the possibility that a student may drop out because he or she may not be able to cope with the demands of both sets of activities. The right to an education is best exercised by giving students the choice to decide what field their lives would like to be based on, and about how to pursue these aims.
Many students do not take advantage of the extra-curricular opportunities they are currently offered...

Making extra-curricular activity compulsory will take the fun out of it and strip it of its benefits. Successful extra-curricular groups work precisely because the students have voluntarily chosen to be there. If some were forced to take part, they would be less enthusiastic and spoil the activity for the rest. And the more the activity is like ordinary school, the less attractive it will be to young people. Most of the personal development benefits associated with extra-curricular commitments – such as altruistic service, initiative-taking, and leadership skills – come from the voluntary nature of the activity. If that voluntary aspect is removed, then the benefits are lost too.
An ambitious co-curricular programme is quite affordable for schools and colleges of all kinds. Sta...

Giving a greater place in education to the co-curriculum means that many more clubs and activities will have to be organised for students. This will be very expensive as it will require more staff and more resources to be paid for. This explains why most schools that currently offer a large co-curriculum are well-funded fee-paying institutions. Most ordinary schools, dependent on state-funding, will never be able to match this spending and could not aim to offer an ambitious co-curriculum. If they try, it will be at the expense of more important academic activities.
Many towns today do not have a strong civil society, and in more rural areas there may be no groups ...

Giving co-curricular activities greater importance in education can be harmful to civil society as a whole. There are many clubs, teams and groups available for young people already in most areas – e.g. Scouts, religious work, music, drama, sport, voluntary work in the community, etc. Why should these be ignored and only those done in school given academic credit of some kind? Often pursuits offered by schools end up replicating those already available in the wider community. For example, a school hockey team may deprive the local town’s hockey club of young players, while school adventure activities might weaken the community’s Scouting and Guiding groups. So a strong co-curriculum may have the effect of killing off lots of worthwhile community-based activities because they do not receive school credit. This would be a shame as a strong civil society is vital to a thriving democratic culture, but also because groups that involve people of all ages possess great social and educational value.
Co-curricular activities prepare students practically for the future. The normal curriculum can only...

Co-curricular activities prepare students practically for the future. The normal curriculum can only go so far as to teach and educate students about academic theories. But students whose only experience of school or college is one of rigid academic study may not be able to apply what they have learned in practice. If the co-curriculum was given an equal footing in student life there will be an improvement in the student ability to grasp things as a whole, because students will have received a more rounded education. Co-curricular activities are particularly good at providing opportunities for students to work in teams, to exercise leadership, and to take the initiative themselves. These experiences make students more attractive to universities and to potential employers.
Multiculturalism promotes healthier new generations

Every human being has unique appearance. However, we all have genetically encoded features such as as skin, hair, eye color, etc. Furthermore, in a certain region a certain gene pool is shared between the individuals. Therefore, we can easily identify if a person is African, Asian or European just by looking at their features. For example, only approximately 1 to 2% of the human population has red hair while about 40% of Scottish carries the recessive redhead gene. This is so because this population has lived in the same region for a long time and has not mixed with other races a lot, so they have kept this gene. The issue here is that we not only share features but we also share inheritable diseases that are influenced by genes, as well. For instance, 44% of Japanese adults have Myopia (an inherited eyesight defect). And if both: the father and the mother have this Myopia gene there is a ¾ probability that their children will have the same eyesight defect. However, if a person that carries this gene has children with a person that does not, the chance that a child will have Myopia is reduced to 1/4. The put this very simply, the ‘good’ gene acts like a backup, effectively preventing disease the ‘bad’ gene might have caused. And the chances of a ‘bad’ gene meeting a ‘bad’ gene increases along with the amount of time it has spent circulating the gene pool of a certain region. To sum up, the more diverse the genes of the father and the mother are, the healthier the child will be. And the multicultural society is the best possible medium for such marriages of two individuals with the completely different sets of genes to appear, resulting healthier new generations.
Multiculturalism is antithetical to liberal democracy‏.

The opposition asserts that liberal democracies cannot co-exist with multiculturalism because they have completely incompatible values and that Britain is a good example of how multiculturalism is a failing policy. First, it is not true that liberal democracies and the cultures of the world have completely incompatible values. There is a certain basis of values that all of the cultures share. For example, murder, slavery or theft are universally prohibited everywhere and they are part of the core of the liberal democratic values too. Second, even if there is some point of conflict between the values of a liberal democracy and the values of different cultures, this conflict is not a bad thing because it enables the liberal democracy to constantly reinforce and adapt their values, and it helps the cultures mitigate and reconcile some of theirs. Multiculturalism is essential in strengthening liberal democracies because it makes people constantly question, tolerate and accept new values which is equal to reinforcing the values of a liberal democracy itself. Otherwise certain ideas would become dominant and this is contrary to the point of liberal democracy itself. Second, multiculturalism allows people to reconcile their own values to adapt to those of the liberal democracy. E.g. most of the African immigrants in Europe do not follow traditional practices of female genital population not because these are banned by law but because the immigrants themselves have a mindset change. People from different cultures are exposed to the values of multiculturalism such as freedom of speech, religion, physical integrity, etc. and it helps them reconcile their traditional cultural practices with those of a liberal democracy to make the two more compatible with each other. The multiculturalism policy in Britain is but a bad example because Britain undertook separation and not multiculturalism as they encouraged different cultures to live separate lives.
Multiculturalism doesn't create diverse societies; it creates politically correct societies.

The opposition's argument suggests that cultures would lose their diversity and that this is necessarily a bad thing. Both of these premises are ill-founded right from the beginning. First of all, there is a premise that the cultural values of all of the different cultures would have to be either suppressed or removed. This does not have to be true. While cultures do at times relax some of their practices, there are a lot of cases where later they turn back on their traditions and even strengthen them. An example is the Irish language which was close to extinction due to the British rule in the 19th century but is currently the official language of Ireland. Another example is the traditional Pagan religion in Lithuania which is being revived despite ages of Christianity. In fact, the Internet, mass-communication and mass-media often facilitate the revival and fostering of cultural traditions. Second of all, even if we accept the opposition's argument on face value, the other premise that they rely on is that all of the cultural values are worth saving. This premise is in not only in direct conflict with the opposition's previous argument where they stated practices of female genital mutilation undesirable but it is not factual either. We say that some cultural practices are indeed not worth saving but not because they are bad but because some cultures have outgrown their own practices and need new ones. It is true that there might be situations where a language gets used less than it used to be but we fail to see how this is bad if it actually helps members of that culture communicate and trade and by so doing increases their well-being. In other words, the opposition is promoting cultural practices as ends in themselves where we submit cultural practices are often means to achieving those ends and sometimes it is better for cultures to change those values not because they are intrinsically bad but just because the culture has outgrown their own values
Opposition Summary

(We’d like to apologize to Team Lithuania for messing up on our posting and not giving them much to work with from the beginning. Our team has been working from three continents this past week, and we’ve been struggling with internet connection/communication problems. It hasn’t made for very good debate, but you’ve been good sports, so thank you!) Prop offered us the idea that multiculturalism would result in exchange of ideas, thus contributing to the state’s economy. We agree that this kind of an outcome is desirable, but we don’t believe it would happen on a scale large enough to offset the practical issues related to pulling people out of the countries where their education is relevant, and where they understand the culture and the language, and transplant them, leaving behind social supports just when they are faced with a huge learning curve, that the diversity of ideas alone will make the whole equation add up to greater productivity. Instead of resulting in interactions between cultures, multiculturalism ends up either bringing about greater isolation, or wearing down cultural differences. In some cases, this adds to discrimination. It entrenches attitudes of competition within rather than between nations, and discourages integration and cooperation. Prop brought up the point that multiculturalism promotes more tolerant societies. Multiculturalism is idealistic in theory, but its real effect is promoting politically correct societies, eliminating cultural activities that do not involve all the cultures. It is liberal democracy that protects the rights of minority groups, not multiculturalism, and increasing the migrant population from different cultures as the proposition is proposing is going to complicate that job, not make it easier. We cannot quarrel with Prop in their contention that countries have a moral responsibility to help those in need. What the opposition would like to clarify is first, that liberal democratic governments accept refuges from all different cultures in the status quo; second, that promoting the idea that all cultures are equal in value leaves room for at least theoretical support for violations of human rights as some cultures value cultural practices like infanticide, genital mutilation, the oppression of women, even retributive murder. Finally, Prop stated that promotion of multiculturalism is going to result in a healthy new generation. The problem is that this argument destroys their previous supports for multiculturalism, because it places multiculturalism as a throw-away means to the end of cross-breeding, which will ultimately destroy cultural diversity and negate the benefits the Prop has outlined. Ultimately, Prop’s plan is too short-sighted. Like a child mixing paints for the first time, it is full of rainbow-dreams, but we all know what happens when you mix the paintbox: you don’t get a rainbow, but cloudy grey. We need some separation to keep the beauty there is in diversity.
Definitions

Governments refers to all the all governing bodies of all states of the world but especially of liberal democracies since being a liberal democracy often serves as an essential prerequisite for a stable and accepting society. Multiculturalism refers to a state of communal diversity inside the territory of a state when people of various races, ethnicities, religious and cultural backgrounds live, work and trade together, participate in political life and are otherwise engaged in social and cultural interactions within the society while the the society remains aware and fully accepting of the different backgrounds and cultures of all the members of the society. Multiculturalism in this sense is contrasted to the concept of a nation-state or an assimilated state (a homogenous state) where the inhabitants of the country naturally share or are assimilated into sharing their racial, cultural and religious backgrounds. Active promotion refers to two kinds of measures. First, measures facilitating imigration such as less strict border control, initial economic and social support for immigrants and the creation of various opportunities to enter the state such as green card lotteries, advertisement of different work, study and business programmes, etc. Second, measures encouraging respect for multiculturalism and directed towards the whole of the society such as formal education about different cultures, legislation prohibiting discrimination, introduction of television programmes in various languages within the society as illustrated by the Special Broadcasting Service in Australia, allowing foreign festivals and holidays (e.g. Saint Patrick's Day in Argentina), supporting all kinds of artistic or cultural expression from ethnic groups and undertaking other similar actions in order to spread multiculturalism.
Multiculturalism greatly facilitates advancement and progress by advancing cultural exchange in both products and ideas.

This happens because multiculturalism renders the various features of different cultures accessible to the whole population of the state. Since people are living close by, they are often strongly economically and socially incentivized to fill empty niches in the market by introducing features of their own cultures into the market. This enables the people to interchange various elements of their cultures and in turn it renders them capable to get services that they enjoy and would not otherwise be able to get: The Eastern cultures can avail of the Western medicine, modern technology and scholarship while the Western cultures are able to make use of the Eastern food, arts and literature, for example. Moreover, this import extends to the academia and ideas too since the scholars of different cultures are able to due to their knowledge of the cultures and incentivized by means of sense of achievement, scholarly recognition and economic motives to introduce different concepts from their cultures to the academic debate. This is very beneficial in light of the fact in man's search for truth an exposure to as a wide a range of ideas as possible is essential. Multiculturalism provides just the right conditions for that to happen and often these ideas have immense consequences for science, politics and society. For example, the introduction of Western democratic values has greatly influenced the politics of the Eastern countries. On the other hand, the West has been able to make use of Eastern philosophies such as Taoism and Buddhism as well as of their spiritual practices. In summary therefore, multiculturalism greatly facilitates the exchange of ideas and products between cultures due to economic, social and other incentives that this introduction entails and this has positive consequences to the state and its people.
Multiculturalism is morally justified

We have no argument to make against the contention the people should help others in pain. Let us be clear that we are not advocating closed borders, especially to refugees. In fact, it is because we want to promote human rights that we cannot accept that all cultures are morally equal and deserve equal acceptance. We believe Team Lithuania has the best of intentions, but this alone does not add up to moral might. The Proposition looks at multiculturalism as an abstract idea rather than a concrete one with a real-world context with consequences and entailments. Promoting multiculturalism is much more than simply helping out the deprived. The morality this argument rests on is not a new concept. It exists in the status quo. Many states currently welcome refugees without actively promoting multiculturalism. Beyond this, we would argue that multiculturalism is in reality not always morally justified. If "helping people in need" is the moral value, we don't see that introducing cultures into a Turkish bazaar of cultures will in fact help them. Even if the Proposition's brand of multiculturalism affords special rights to individual or minority cultural groups, this just pits one against another. Instead of serving to balance the inequalities that exist, it entrenches attitudes of competition within rather than between nations, and discourages integration and cooperation. Furthermore, we submit that the rule of law and human rights are concepts that are inherently superior and should be protected regardless of opposing cultural values. Multiculturalism asks us to accept both cultural and moral relativism, because morals are rooted in cultural perspectives. If we accept them all as equally valuable, then we are forced to go along with cultural practices like infanticide, genital mutilation, the oppression of women, even retributive murder. This is incompatible with morality as both the Proposition and we present it.