Rostrum contributes to the welfare and personal growth of Australian Youth through the conduct of the annual Rostrum Voice of Youth Speaking Competition, which began in 1975.

The Rostrum Voice of Youth national finalists completing the Story Bridge adventure climb

2010 National Voice of Youth results
2009 National Voice of Youth results
Voice of Youth Honour Roll

The competition is open to Secondary School Students and is conducted in Senior and Junior divisions. Contestants select a topic from a supplied list. Seniors speak for eight minutes and Juniors for six minutes. In the final rounds of the competition, contestants are required to give a three minute short-notice speech in addition to the prepared speech. Many schools conduct their own competitions to determine the students who will enter the Rostrum event.

The competition begins at Heat level in city and provincial regions in all States and the Australian Capital Territory (to which we refer as Zones), in March each year,and progresses to the National Final held late in July. Students compete for perpetual trophies which are held by the winners’ schools and personal trophies which are held by the winners.

The competition is funded by sponsors from Government and Business.  Various sponsors support the competition in each state with the national final being sponsored by Ansvar Insurance.

Rostrum members organise the competition nation-wide and are active in the roles of adjudicators and  timekeepers  They also chair the various meetings at which heats and finals are conducted.  Because of the high and increasing number of entries,   Rostrum seeks and receives assistance from many other community organisations in the conduct of the competition in those regions in which Rostrum does not have sufficient representation.

In 2010, the Senior Finalists in the National competition were honoured to be invited to become ‘Friends of Australia’ – an advocacy initiative by Tourism Australia to encourage influential voices to help spread the word about Australia as a great place to travel.

For further information, please refer to the Rostrum Voice Of Youth Convenor in your State by clicking on your state link:

• Queensland
• NSW
• Victoria
• Tasmania
• SA
• WA
• ACT