The Ghana Police Service has reviewed its curriculum for the training of new police recruits.

In a week-long workshop from 28 February to 4 March, members of the Police Management Board, Commanding Officers of Police Training Schools, senior and retired police officers, course instructors as well as external resource persons, came together to update the curriculum.

More than 50 participants contributed to their field of expertise around Police Science, Legal Studies, Communication Skills, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Basic Officer Skills, Citizen-Friendly Policing, as well as Physical Training and Drill.

The revisions reflect the new demands of policing and include a more detailed standardised curriculum, which ensures that new police recruits will learn the same training content, irrespective of the police training schools in Ghana they attend. Amongst other changes, the review team recommends a stronger focus on community policing, police accountability as well as ICT.

Once finalised and approved, the Ghana Police Service intends to update existing course documents and develop new manuals where required, which would equip instructors with everything they need to provide state-of-the-art trainings.   

At a brief closing ceremony, the Commanding Officer of the National Police Training School (NPTS), Chief Superintendent Samuel Okanta highlighted that “our training of Basic Recruits is the basis for delivering a planned, democratic, protective and peaceful service to our citizens. The fact that all these key experts contributed to this review will be of benefit for our new recruits and through that for the citizens of this country.”

In revising the curriculum, the Ghana Police Service collaborated with the “Programme to Build and Strengthen Police Structures in Selected Partner Countries in Africa” (Police Programme), which is funded by the German Federal Foreign Office and implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH.

In his closing remarks, the Manager of the Police Programme in Ghana, Philipp Niehenke stated that he was impressed with the commitment and enthusiasm of everyone involved.

“You brought together hundreds of years of experience for this review. And everyone was very engaged to bring your curriculum up-to-date, ensuring that new recruits will learn and practice all they need to prevent and detect crime, apprehend offenders and maintain public order and safety,” Mr Niehenke said.

The Police Programme is supporting the Service in three thematic areas, including a training system.

Over the last two years, the programme has supported a review of the Police training system and a respective implementation strategy; the development of tailor-made training for inspectors, as well as the refurbishment of computer classrooms at NPTS and the Police Academy.

At the end of the ceremony, all Police Training Schools were handed training equipment, including soft boards, flip charts, method boxes, projectors, projector screens and laptops, following a recommendation from the initial training system review in 2020, to further improve the training quality and professional training material.