Police College to roll out new Command Courses
The policing environment in Hong Kong is challenging in many ways. The public have high expectations of officers in positions of responsibility and this means the Police College must provide high quality training.
In the coming financial year, major improvements will be made to all three levels of command course. Each course will have a focus: strategic management and change for Senior Command Course (SCC); people management for Intermediate Command Course (ICC); and functional competency for Junior Command Course (JCC). The new course design has expanded the traditional three-week classroom course to a blended learning package consisting of a pre-classroom online learning phase, a two-week classroom phase and for the SCC and ICC, a post-classroom project phase.
The new command courses mark a milestone of incorporating an interactive online learning environment to formal training, in line with Strategic Action Plan related to fostering of co-operation with learning institutions to leverage technology that provides new methods of delivering skills and knowledge to Force members. In the pre-classroom phase, officers will be asked to submit their views in writing after reading articles or viewing videos related to various training topics. Their feedback will be shared on the Enterprise Wiki platform, a closed environment on the Intranet, allowing them to reflect on and prepare for classroom subjects.
The classroom phase, which is divided into modules of Self and Leadership and Context of Policing and Organisational Effectiveness, will concentrate on subjects that are most needed and most critical for development in ranks. Thanks to the online phase and pre-classroom preparation, the classroom phase now enjoys deeper discussion and a more interactive style of delivery and presenters can spend more time in experience sharing and facilitating behavioral change, instead of one-way lecturing.
In an effort to align training environment with the real world, the new command courses, except the JCC, will replace in-class group projects with an individual work improvement project conducted in the eight weeks after classroom delivery. This improvement paper allows officers to apply the concepts learned from the course to make a positive change at their workplace. They are encouraged to get their formation personnel involved in their improvement efforts.
The new command courses, apart from enhancing the effectiveness of training and providing a better environment for learning, mark the beginning of a new phase of leadership training in Police College. Adoption of the Enterprise Wiki facilitates conversation and learning far beyond the classroom and offers an opportunity to approach leadership development in a more integrated way. So, while the Management Learning Division will be busy in the year ahead rolling out the new courses, it will also study ways of sharing learning among Inspectors Continuation Training, Junior Command, Intermediate Command and Senior Command Courses.
