Thirty Police students from eight African countries attending the 'Police Senior Command and Staff' Course at the National Police College (NPC) left Kigali on Sunday for the Africa study tour.

The third intake is composed of students from Burundi, Ethiopia, Gambia, Kenya, Namibia, Rwanda, South Sudan and Uganda. The Africa tour to be conducted in Kenya and Namibia is part of the NPC curriculum and it will be conducted under the theme: 'National Security Challenges.' The students will visit simultaneously in two separate groups to learn varied geo-political and security threats or changes in the visited countries. The week-long tour follows internal study tours, where they visited various institutions in the country, including Rwanda Governance Board (RGB), National Unity and Reconciliation Commission (NURC), ministries of East African Community and Disaster and Refugee Affairs, Inyange and East African Granite industries, among others. Police spokesperson, Chief Supt. Celestin Twahirwa said that at the end of the tours, the students are expected to write a comparative paper demonstrating the relationship between the theoretical and practical parts of what was learnt in class and what they saw during the tour. "The purpose of this study tour is therefore to broaden the students' understanding of the regional and global security perspectives and enable them to link the policy, strategy, security and development as well as peace and conflicts in socioeconomic transformation," CSP Twahirwa said. The group visiting Namibia is scheduled to visit sixteen institutions that include Police general headquarters, Regional Police Unit, Ministry of National Planning and that of International Relations and Cooperation, operational directorate and Special Reserve Force Division. They will also visit the National Museum of Namibia, University of Namibia, Human Right and Legal Assistance centre, Namibia Institute of Public Administration and Management and Institute of Public Policy Research. In Kenya, they will visit thirteen places that include the National Police Staff College Loresho, Kenya Maritime Authority, Administration Police Training College Embakasi and Judiciary Training Institute (JTI). Other places include Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI) Training School, General Service Unit (GSU) Training school Embakasi, Fort Jesus and Petroleum Refinery Plant. The students in the first and second intake conducted their study tour in Uganda and Kenya respectively. The one-year course offers police operation and staff work, strategic leadership in police studies and master’s programme in Peace Studies and Conflict transformation. After the tour which comes to complement police academic studies, they will have requisite skills to handle strategic issues, the reason why they are trained to that level, CSP Twahirwa explained.