Rwanda National Police

Thirty eight Commissioners and senior Police officers on July 31, graduate with a Masters of Arts in Peace Studies and Conflict Transformation from University of Rwanda marking the second cohort graduating in the course.

During the graduation ceremony held at College of Business and Economics (CBE), 31 other police officers were also accorded a conferment for having completed their studies in Professional Police Studies - a course that has been offered since 2007. This is the fifth cohort taking the course.

Prior to that,  other , 33 police  officers graduated with Bachelors Degree in Law and  32 in ICT from University of Rwanda,  this year only police granduands  total to 38 masters holders and 96 bachelors holder.

Among the granduands was Commissioner of Police, Cyprian Gatete, the Police Reserve Force Commander who pointed out that Rwanda National Police has prioritize educating and professionalizing its officers with a focus of having all its servicemen and women equipped with advanced and contemporary policing skills.

Gatete who graduated with a Masters of Arts in Peace Studies and Conflict Transformation said that during their course, the Commissioners and senior Police officers acquired skills that are directed towards building a modern and professional police force.

The courses that officers took ranged from Peace Studies and Conflict Transformation, Strategic Command offered by National police college.

The courses are designed explicitly as a leadership programmes with an aim of upgrading policing to the high most standards and placing participants into demanding roles where they can develop as leaders and strategists.

Students are trained  to be highly effective police officers for them to develop a clear vision for local  and international security challenges.

"Africa is bound to benefit a lot from the skills that Rwanda National Police is gaining; we are engaged in training many police officers across the continent - that way, we can network, form synergies and collective use of modernized means to fight crimes " Gatete said.

Gatete said, today RNP is positioned among the best and well performing police peacekeeping forces globally due to the knowledge and skills  exhibited by its officers.

"When it comes to the conflict areas where peacekeeping operations are required, we can be able to use the knowledge we have acquired to prevent, minimize and contain conflicts anywhere," he said.

With the new skills, Rwanda National Police has built a reputation of being community-friendly through redressing grievances and restoring law and order among people in the rural and urban areas of the country.

In February this year, Rwanda National Police (RNP) and the University of Rwanda (UR) entered an agreement for the latter to reinforce the force's specialized policing programmes.

The agreement came to strengthen the existing partnership, following the signing of the MoU with the Colleges of Education, formerly Kigali Institute of Education in 2007, College of Science and Technology, former KIST and College of Arts and Social Science previously NUR in 2011, which operated independently at the time.

The partnership focuses mainly on exchange of lecturers, staff and researchers to support the running of the National Police College (NPC) programmes effectively

Other areas include mutual assistance in the establishment, development and validation of programmes and exchange of information relevant to  specialized training in the field of policing