Training programme with Canada a success
Police College played host to 12 Canadian police officers at Superintendent or equivalent ranks and two International Fellows, Mr Warwick Jones, Executive Director of the Australian Institute of Police Management, and Mr Jan van Loosbroek, Deputy Chief Constable, Head of Operational Strategy & Support Services, Netherlands Police Agency, from October 8 to 16. They joined 10 Superintendents of the Force in classroom for the second time as the International Executive Development in Policing Programme (IEDPP) drew to a close.
The IEDPP started online in January this year and the participants attended eight-day classroom training in the Canadian Police College in Ottawa in March. In summer, the participants completed a substantial Strategic Change Project, under which they applied their knowledge at the workplace to deal with various issues.
In Hong Kong, the participants attended a number of workshops, including those on media training and dealing with multiple generations at the workplace, visited the Guangzhou Public Security Bureau, and shared the knowledge they acquired in the past 10 months.
All of the participants see completion of the IEDPP as a significant challenge. For many of them, it is the most practical leadership development course they have attended.
The Charles Sturt University in Australia has recognised the significance and value of this joint programme by offering graduates up to 50 per cent of the credits for its Master Degree in Leadership and Management (Policing). This is a big incentive and saving for officers considering taking the Master Degree course.
The success of the collaboration in running the IEDPP was presented at a meeting of the INTERPOL Group of Experts on Police Training held in Wiesbaden, Germany, last month. It will also be published in their International Policing Training Journal.
The next IEDPP is scheduled for second half of 2013. Other jurisdictions, including Australia and the Netherlands, have expressed interest in joining the 10-month programme, hoping it would groom their officers in leadership development and broaden their international outlook.
The Canadian officers
visit Marine Region Headquarters