Police students from African countries currently attending the 6th intake of the ‘Police Senior Command and Staff Course’ at the National Police College (NPC) in Musanze District, have started a week-long external study tour in Sudan as part of their one year course. Twenty-eight police students from eight African countries are attending the one year professional and career course, which also offers a Master’s in Peace Studies and Conflict Transformation, and Level 7 certificate in strategic leadership and management. The senior officers are from Ethiopia, Kenya, Namibia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Rwanda, the host. The external tour in Sudan started on July 1, and follows another week-long internal study tour conducted in May where the officers visited various public and private institutions including Rwanda Governance Board (RGB) and the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission (NURC), among others. In Sudan, the students headed by the Commandant of NPC, Commissioner of Police Felix Namuhoranye, on July 2, visited different policing institutions including the Khartoum State Police, Training Department and the Regional Forensic Laboratories. “The institutions to be visited are those with orientation in delivering strategic policing; leadership and management; peace and security; conflict prevention and management; socio-economic development; policy-making, justice and good governance,” Namuhoranye said. “The aim of this study tour is to enable course participants to meet and interact with practitioners and policymakers in various institutions deliberating on areas related to their studies to realize how different theories learnt in class are translated into practice,” he added. “Through interactive sessions with different policymakers and practitioners in Sudan’s policing structure, students learnt a lot including professionalization of the force through a modernised training equipment, use of enhanced technologies both in training and service delivery mainly in traffic management, force welfare schemes and police discipline.” The Commandant underscored the rationale for benchmarking policies, experiences and best practices for learning and comparative purposes as an “important milestone towards building a strong bilateral and multilateral cooperation in the fight against trans-border criminality though strategic police officers’ networking.” The highest rated police course also aims at imparting to officers knowledge and skills in relation to Strategic Command and professional policing, Executive Leadership as well as Strategic Management.
