Hong Kong Police Academy launches bachelor's degree course for junior officers
The Hong Kong Police College will offer a new bachelor's degree in security and criminal investigation for rank-and-file officers, with full government funding. The programme aims to attract more recruits and enhance career progression.
The Hong Kong Police College will launch a "Security and Criminal Investigation (Honours) Police Bachelor" degree programme, the first applied-degree course approved for a government department in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. The programme targets junior police officers who do not hold a bachelor's degree, with enrolment beginning at the end of this year and classes starting in March next year. Selected officers will receive full funding from the police force, which believes the programme will help attract more people to join the force.
The police force announced that the college passed a review by the accreditation authority in August this year, qualifying it to offer bachelor's degree programmes. The course has a "junior year" stream with 80 places annually for officers with secondary-school qualifications, requiring about four years to complete the full degree. The "senior year" stream has 40 places, open to serving officers or sergeants with associate degrees or higher diplomas, either progressing from the junior stream or through direct admission, and takes two years. The police disclosed that 40 per cent of new recruits in the past two years held a bachelor's degree or higher, while 60 per cent did not.
College director Cheng Lai-ki said the programme aims to improve officers' personal qualities, benefit their service to the community, and provide a promotion ladder, while also hoping to attract more people to join the force. Cheung Hoi-yan, principal of the college's special studies school, said interested officers must pass a selection interview. The curriculum emphasises policing theory and practical skills, covering police training, criminal investigation, field placements, and workplace and academic language. After completing relevant training, students will be placed in frontline police districts and criminal investigation units for internships, with regular duty hours counted as internship hours. They must also complete a graduation thesis supervised by officers at the rank of superintendent or above who graduated from Tsinghua University or the University of Cambridge. Cheung stressed that operational needs remain the priority even during study.
Separately, the police will formally establish the "Hong Kong International Police Academy" on 11 November. The academy will focus on organising key international training courses and police leadership forums to deepen international policing exchanges and cooperation, reinforcing the Hong Kong police as "Asia's finest". The police said key training courses include major event security and crowd management, counter-terrorism and bomb disposal, major crime investigation and forensic science, aiming to promote the professional image of the Hong Kong police internationally and, through exchanges with other regions, tell the story of Hong Kong and China well.
