John Karanja is a top police officer who is always looking for ways to advance his career and improve his skill level. He is therefore thrilled to be among 400 police officers from Kenya who will travel to China for refresher training courses in June and July.

Karanja, who has a black belt in taekwondo, loves his chosen vocation and realizes the need to keep adding to his policing expertise, especially in the investigative area. "With new technology always evolving, it calls for additional professional training quite often," he said.

"I do believe this initiative by [our] government will help improve our service delivery to the public. Obviously, our pay and allowances will increase as well, which is an [additional] motivating factor," said Karanja.

Because many of those set to receive extra training guard prominent people, such as the Kenyan president, visiting heads of state and senior politicians, they require the right skills to perform their duties, said Karanja.

Four hundred trainees per year

Karanja has been in the Kenyan National Police Service for the last 20 years and acknowledges that a lot has changed in that time, especially in the field of technology.

"Criminals are very smart people. As a police officer, if you are challenged technologically, socially, or physically, you need a new plan to think outside the box to succeed," he explains.

The government training program Karanja and his peers are undertaking began in late June this year and hopes to train at least 400 police officers per year. According to the outgoing National Police Service Spokesperson Charles Owino, members of the presidential guard, paramilitary, forensics, wildlife unit and criminal investigators will be given priority.

"This program is necessary to better equip our officers with the necessary skills. Technology and the way criminals operate is a challenge. Some will be required to advance their studies and get either a bachelor's or master's degree in criminology in an accredited Chinese institution, but this is optional," said Owino, who will move to the Kenya National Focal Point on Small Arms and Light Weapons as a deputy director.

The long serving police spokesperson said that the training program will be intensive, including short courses in criminology, improving shooting skills and better self-defense, such as learning kungfu. Owino also said that they will learn new and advanced methods of intelligence gathering.

There are 100,000 police officers in Kenya, according to the Ministry of Internal Security, and the number is increasing by around 27 percent each year as new recruits join the service.

The training program will also involve police cadets and training of police pilots in Asia's largest training institution of aviation - the Civil Aviation Flight University of China.

According to Owino, this initiative will make the police service as professional as possible.

According to the Ministry of Interior and Coordination of National Government, they hope to increase the number of officers in the training program.

"We hope to increase the number by a much bigger margin. There is a lot more that we are doing to improve on police reforms. We have come a long way over the years," said Fred Matiang'i, the Cabinet Secretary (Minister) of Interior and Coordination of National Government in Kenya. "This will give a lot of our officers much needed exposure."

According to Matiang'i, there has also been an increase in the housing allowances of officers as part of the police reforms. They now have the choice to seek rented housing outside the police quarters.

These reforms come about after years of Kenyan police living in deplorable conditions, which has affected their motivation to perform their professional duties efficiently.

Skills needed in changing world

A branch of the Kenyan National Police Service, the General Service Unit will be given the utmost priority in this training program. The paramilitary police unit is considered highly trained, even more so than the Kenyan military.

Their main job is maintaining national security, as well as the security of the president, deputy president, and other prominent persons in Kenya.

Matiang'i confirms that this unit would send a number of officers to China. Both experienced and newly recruited officers will be given an equal chance, and other units will also be included.

It is not known how long this program will last, but it will depend on the intensity of the training, said to Matiang'i.

According to George Musamali, a safety and security consultant at Executive Protection Services that does work for both government and the private sector, the ever-growing threat of global terrorism will see many officers receive high-level training as bomb experts. The Kenyan Government will liaise with the Beijing Police College.

"This is also a way of modernizing the police service. The service has long been accused by the government of poor integrity. Now, things are changing rapidly in the service. In the next few years, it is possible that the police will be able to match the professionalism of the military," said Musamali.

Musamali, who is also a former paramilitary officer, said that the program will yield positive results.

"It's good to learn how other countries are teaching their security personnel to deal with changing situations. The world is changing and becoming more complex with each passing day," said Musamali.

This was the second time that the country's police officers were sent to China for security training. Exactly three years ago, Kenya sent officers who guard railways and ports to Beijing for specialized four-week training.

Field work and study tours will be part of the current training. Kenya, Zambia and Rwanda are among the other African countries that have trained their security personnel in China.

"In a world where situations are very unpredictable, improving our professional skills is important. A lot of my colleagues need specialized training. Our surroundings keep changing quite often," said Dan Githinji, a constable who joined the Kenyan National Police Service last year.

"Apart from learning how to relate well with civilians, we have to understand how to avoid conflicts and how to solve them amicably," said Githinji.

He hopes to be included in the program in future and said that the kungfu being introduced to the police by Chinese experts is an advantage for officers.

"What we need is a specialized police service and so far, there are very few such officers. The Chinese program will be very beneficial [to achieve this]," said Githinji.

The program is happening at a time when increased cases of insecurity have been witnessed in the country in recent months. CA

Reporting from Kenya

（Print Edition Title: Honing Policing Skills）

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