Plans For Police Degree Dropped
The Age
Wednesday March 19, 2008
A MUCH-LAUDED plan to create Victoria's first police university degree has been quietly shelved, with Assistant Commissioner Simon Overland admitting the proposal was "too ambitious".
In what would have been a major overhaul pushed by the State Government, police recruits would have been required to do a bachelor's degree, possibly for up to three years, before they could enter the workforce.The proposal was underpinned by concerns that police needed better skills to cope with the rise of sophisticated crimes such as terrorism, identity fraud and amphetamine production.But The Age has learnt that the program - which was due to begin this year - has been shelved after some universities, including Monash and Deakin, pulled out of a bidding war to offer the course.University insiders say the type of course Victoria Police wanted to create was unfeasible and could have cost education faculties millions of dollars in lost revenue.Mr Overland yesterday confirmed that Victoria Police would have to go back to the drawing board. He said the organisation was "still committed to a higher education model" to revamp the way police are trained across the state, but could not guarantee when Victoria would finally get its first police university degree."I think it might have been a bit ambitious," Mr Overland said of the original plan. "Perhaps our model wasn't as well thought through as it should be. So we stopped the tender process and we're now rethinking the model."Requiring would-be police officers to get a university degree in policing before starting the job would have been a radical shift from the current education system, which offers a diploma after 20 weeks of training at the Glen Waverley Police Academy.Police wanted the program to incorporate the academy's existing training regime, but also put a greater emphasis on new crime trends, social issues and codes of practice to combat police corruption. Spruiking the plan in the lead-up to the November 2006 state election, then Police Minister Tim Holding said there was "only so much that 20 weeks of training at the academy can deliver to a person who is expected to operate in a very high-pressure environment, make split-second decisions and do an extraordinarily diverse range of tasks".Yesterday, a spokesman for the current Police Minister, Bob Cameron, said: "Victoria Police have advised they are committed to the project, and are currently appointing a new assistant commissioner of education to take it forward."Police and the Government have been tight-lipped about which universities had bid for the original tender, but The Age believes that Monash, Deakin, RMIT, Victoria University and Swinburne had expressed an interest.However, one university source said police specifications for the tender were simply not feasible. "They basically wanted to do the 20-week training course that they currently do at the Police Academy, and then give people one year and a half's worth of credit for it," the source said."That was never in the early draft."KEY POINTS ? The degree could have cost education faculties millions.? The Government insists Victoria Police is still committed to the project.
© 2008 The Age
