The charity Concern has spent 20 years getting young people to think about how the world works, reports Louise Holden

In 1989 I stood in front of a hall of boys from St Gerard's School, in Bray, and tried to argue the case for apartheid. I had spent the previous two weeks in fraught isolation, trawling through copies of Newsweek and Time magazines, trying to find anything that would recommend South Africa's ghastly regime. I learned more about poverty, injustice, political responsibility and Third World economics in those two short weeks than in all my preceding 17 years. I learned more about overcoming nerves in that hair-raising five minutes on the podium than I ever will again. I was amply prepared for any radio interview, wedding speech or pub discussion that followed.

This year is the 20th anniversary of the Concern Debates, Ireland's biggest school-debating competition. Thousands of students have experienced the rush of stepping off the podium after delivering weeks of frenzied research in a capsule of performance, self-possession and certitude.

The topics have changed from Live Aid to Make Poverty History. The research tools have moved from dusty library copies of the Economist to Google. The students have smaller hairdos. The point of the exercise, however, remains the same.

"As an organisation that works in the developing world, one of our key responsibilities is to raise awareness of development issues here in Ireland," says Michael Doorly, Concern's education manager. "The debates have always empowered students with information that they have gathered and shared among themselves. The difference now is that we are global citizens. Students have more power to influence world events."

Students who take part in the Concern Debates enter a bigger world. Through their research the students examine the links between trade and poverty, HIV/Aids and politics, hunger and environment. By arguing out these issues with fellow students they come to recognise that responsible citizenship feeds into everyday life, in everything from voting to shopping.

"Research suggests that teens and young children are responsible for 70 per cent of food purchases," says Doorly. "The more young people are educated about issues such as fair trade, child labour and food politics, the better chance we have of creating a fairer world."

One hundred and fifty schools have taken part in the 20th Concern Debates, and at least another 70 take part regularly if not every year. The phenomenon never ceases to amaze Doorly. "Every time I sit in a chilly school hall in Cavan or Tipperary at 9.30 on a Tuesday night and listen to dozens of teenagers arguing about the role of women in sub-Saharan Africa or the responsibility of western governments in the Aids pandemic, it makes me wonder: is this really the same Irish teen that we're always hearing about in the media?"

Doorly has mapped the development of countless students from the initial tentative rounds to the knockout phase. "Most students are very nervous at the beginning, but they learn a great deal from that first experience. Because the debates are run as a league, every participating school gets at least three bites of the cherry. By the third debate the speakers have come into their own. By the national finals they could cross swords with the best the Dáil has to offer."

Lucy Derring, the charity's debates officer, has been reviewing the topics of the past 20 years and says that, although some are quite time specific, other motions could easily be argued today. In 1985 students argued for and against the motion that "Live Aid let our governments off the hook". This year's final, at the Helix next month, will debate whether Make Poverty History, the most recent celebrity- endorsed charity drive, will be a boon or a curse to the poorest of the poor.

Over the life of the competition, schools have become more creative in their use of teamwork: the 2003 winners, Presentation Secondary School in Thurles, had a research team of 25 working behind the four speakers. Each took a different approach to research for the final, combining internet searches, newspaper trawling, interviews and surveys. The result was an unbeatable debating package that involved the whole class.

Although no school has won twice, Wicklow and Tipperary schools always feature in the knockout phase. All Dublin and Cork city schools are out of this year's competition, in a triumphant year for rural schools.

The semi-finalists for this year's competition are Laurel Hill Secondary School, Limerick (see panel, right); Virginia Vocational School, Cavan; Coláiste Bride, Enniscorthy; and Coachford College, Cork. The topic for debate? "Our children will inherit a better world."

www.concern.net/getinvolved/ youth/debates

In at the start One school's experience of the Concern Debates

Laurel Hill Secondary School, in Limerick, has taken part in every Concern Debate since the contest started, in the 1984-85 school year.

English and history teacher Pearse Fallon, who has overseen the process for 20 years, feels it plays an irreplaceable role in the education of the participants, especially when there is so little in the syllabus that develops students' awareness of global issues.

"Every other influence working on students today, from the syllabus to the media, stresses the self. It's all about careers and acquiring money. Through the Concern Debates students get a real education in the issues that affect the wider world. It's not just the speakers that learn: those that take part are likely to be quite clued in anyway, but those students who show up to the debates themselves are often hearing about these issues for the first time."

Coming from an impassioned peer rather that an adult, a treatise on the tragedy of Aids or the injustice of world trade can have a far deeper impact on the thousands of students who attend the debates each year.

The topics are serious compared with those of other debates, but

they provide a world view that students simply aren't exposed to otherwise.

Every school gets to take part in at least three debates; successful schools will debate eight motions over the year. It can be a steep learning curve.

"It's very time consuming, but I would probably spend the time watching TV otherwise, so I don't mind," says this year's Laurel Hill captain, Orlaith O'Connor. "You get drawn into the topics and start looking out for information everywhere you go, asking for people's views and considering your own. Many of our team-strategy meetings dissolve into interesting explorations of the themes.

"We've had a good range of motions this year, from GM foods to child labour to the UN. I know an awful lot more about these topics now than I ever would have learned otherwise. I have an interest in economics that I never had before. I'm considering taking economics in university, because I find the subject fascinating and have tended to veer towards it in all my research.

"I particularly enjoyed the motion that multinational corporations are cleaning up their act. We had to propose this motion, and none of us agreed with it. We took the angle that these big companies are indeed cleaning up their act - and that's all it is: an act."

Ten hot topics from two decades

Live Aid let our governments off the hook (1985)

The Third World was better off under colonialism (1986)

The world's poor benefit least from development aid (1987)

Revolution is the only real option for the poor of the developing world (1988)

The people of the Third World

don't count economically,

politically or culturally (1989)

Charity to the Third World is dangerous (1990)

Ireland of the welcomes is becoming a racist state (1998)

Ethical shopping is better than charity (1999)

The UN is a white elephant (2001)

The Make Poverty History campaign cannot achieve its aims (2005)