The University of Cape Coast has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Ghana Police Service to train personnel of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in Forensic Investigation.
With the signing of the MoU, the University through the Department of Forensic Sciences will mentor the CID Detective Training Academy (DTA) in Accra to run programmes at various academic levels including certificate, diploma, undergraduate and postgraduate.
Unique Collaboration
In his address, the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Joseph Ghartey Ampiah, said the collaboration with the Police Service was a unique one, since it offered the University the opportunity to contribute towards fighting crime and also ensuring peace and security in the country. Prof. Ampiah noted that the University was gradually extending its tentacles to cover all the security agencies in the country. “We have already entered into a similar collaboration with the Ghana National Fire Service and we want to assure you that UCC will equip your personnel to effectively carry out their duties,” he pledged.
The Vice-Chancellor commended the Police Administration for selecting UCC for the collaboration and congratulated them for including an academic component to the training of its personnel. He said through the affiliation, UCC faculty would share their expertise and experiences with tutors to provide quality professional and academic training to personnel of the CID in particular. This, he said would be extended to other personnel of the Ghana Police Service and other security agencies with investigative arm.
Benefits
Touching on some of the benefits of the affiliation to the Ghana Police Service, Prof. Ampiah indicated that the University had a strong collaboration with Gujarat Forensic Sciences University (GFSU) in India, one of the best institutions in Forensic Sciences in the world from which the service can benefit. “Gujarat has offered scholarships to some of our staff and students and they have even promised to establish a training centre at UCC, so the Ghana Police Service can also benefit from their expertise,” he announced.
Academic Training
On his part, the Inspector General of Police, Mr. James Oppong-Boanuh, who signed the MoU on behalf of Ghana Police Service, noted that DTA trained sister security agencies and other state organisations on criminal and forensic investigation. He was hopeful that the affiliation would provide top-notch academic training to personnel in addition to the professional skills and expertise they would acquire from the training. “We look forward to churning out highly competent investigators to complement the services of the police through this collaboration,” he added.
Mr. Oppong-Boanuh said the affiliation would serve as a model to rope in other regional and national training schools of the Service, namely “the Ghana Police Academy which trains new recruits and junior officers and the Command and Staff Training School for senior officers”.
The Inspector General of Police thanked the University for accepting to mentor them adding that “I am hopeful that this will be a win-win partnership to both institutions”. He indicated that UCC lecturers were very familiar with the police environment already and it was his expectation that personnel from the service would receive the best of training to enable them to become confident when conducting investigations.
Present were some Management members of the University and the Ghana Police Service