The Ghana Police Service (GPS) has rolled out its first tailor-made training for a cohort of 24 police inspectors. The training course, which took place from 16th to 27th May 2022, was based on manuals newly developed by the service, and facilitated by senior officers who had gone through a training of trainers.
Guided by its goal to further harmonise and standardise its training, the Police Service has partnered with the ‘Programme to Build and Strengthen Police Structure in Selected Partner Countries in Africa’, which is being implemented by German Development Cooperation, through the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, with funding from the German Federal Foreign Office.
In 2021, a dedicated committee established by the Ghana Police Service and consisting of training and topic experts identified the required content and sought for a course that covers all relevant content for Sergeants being promoted to the rank of Inspectors. Based on the needs assessment, the training course was developed to equip future Inspectors with the required skills to take up their new leadership role as station officers and officers in-charge of other management roles.
Thus, the 10-day course includes 17 lessons including supervision, police accountability, community policing and Station Officer duties. In March 2022, 25 trainers were trained over a period of two weeks on the developed course, focusing not just on the training content, but also modern adult-learning methodologies.
At a closing ceremony on 27th May, 2022 marking the end of the piloted Inspectors Training, the Commanding Officer of the National Police Training School (NPTS) – Chief Superintendent Samuel Okanta, appreciated the training development process and stated: “On behalf of the Police Administration, I thank GIZ and the German Foreign Office for their immense support in the development of this training course and for giving the police full ownership throughout the development process. The same is true for all your highly appreciated support in the area of training”.
In response, the GIZ Programme Manager for Ghana, Mr. Philipp Niehenke, said: “I am glad that the Director-General – Human Resource Department identified very capable officers for the training of trainers. They came with vast practical and training experience as well as the required seniority and readiness to learn more about adult-learning. As today’s evaluation has shown, they were one key factor for the very positive feedback from participants”.
