Security Analyst, Dr. Kwesi Aning, has supported calls for the restructuring of the training curriculum for police recruits into the Ghana Police Service.
According to him, such a restructuring to equip police personnel to offer effective services is long overdue.
[contextly_sidebar id=”GnYfjovIrxXp8CZMV7vbo3SPqkNj3DWC”]He made the comment in support of a suggestion by DSP Kartey Otumi, the Eastern Regional Operations Commander of the Ghana Police Service.
DSP Kartey Otumi said the six-month training programme for police recruits is not enough to ensure professionalism and discipline.
He also stressed to Citi News that the content of police training must change.
“A policeman must be a driver; a policeman must be computer literate, a policeman must know how to swim. We don’t do all these things,” DSP Kartey said.
“[For] me, my training was more sweeping, more fatigue, little learning and I became a police officer,” he added.
His comment comes on the back of rising incidents of unprofessional conduct by some police personnel in the line of duty with some of their actions leading to deaths of civilians and in some cases, leaving innocent citizens maimed.
The most recent incident was when a Police constable at a duty checkpoint at the Moree tollbooth in the Central Region, shockingly fired into a vehicle because the driver was said to have refused to pay a road toll of 50 pesewas.
There’s also the case of 21 police officers set to be interdicted for their role in the killing of some seven men in the Asawase Constituency of the Ashanti Region.
Kwesi Anning said such restructuring “is so long overdue, and I hope that the powers that be in the Police service and the ministry of interior will listen to him, let him bring out a paper so we can start the process of reviewing the curriculum in giving the police service the skill set they need to give us 21st century policing.”
The security analyst, however, said the concerns raised about the duration of training were not as major as ones about the content and scope of training.
“It will certainly go beyond the 6 months, but what we need is not just an extended time, it is about a set of theoretical and simulation-based exercises in class plus an attachment to a particular station over time and back to the classroom.”
Kwesi Aning stressed that the proposed restructuring must be done urgently as the nature of crime is changing in the face of Ghana’s fast population growth and urbanization.
He said police must therefore approach crime more intelligently and professionally with a new skill set.
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By: Jonas Nyabor | citinewsroom.com | Ghana