**5. Major challenges**

*Education, Human Rights and Peace in Sustainable Development*

DHEP and PCDA.

discipline.

practice [96] and skill building [97] is pivotal as the best learning environment is created when experience and knowledge are integrated within a course such as the

students prefer on-the-job training to academic studies such as driving police vehicles, shadowing patrol teams, or practising situations for quick and better understanding of practical policing [98]. Therefore, bringing field experience to the classroom of the DHEP and PCDA learners is mandatory as the popularity of reality TV shows proves that people prefer watching other's lives unfold. Enhanced learning models should be applied in police training so that learning can be made relevant, useful, and effective by bringing the real world of policing into the classroom. This will create an opportunity to stimulate the innovative, common sense, and dynamic learners as McCarthy [99] emphasises on educating the 'whole brain' in addition to educating all types of learners. Most importantly, student officers' voices should be heard and their views should be taken into account in planning, designing, and delivering these academic programmes. Their learning expectations should also be considered as the potential police officers consider policing as a job as practical, exercised on the street, close to people, and with hands-on duties rather than sitting behind an office desk [100]. At the same time, it needs to be appreciated that the aim of the newly introduced three routes of police recruitment is to ultimately help to develop police studies as a well-established academic

Wrenn and Wrenn ([92], p. 258) argued that 'Educators in professional or service-related fields desire their students not only to learn theory and understand why theories are important but also to learn how to apply the theoretical frameworks in practice'. This is absolutely applicable in the case of teaching and learning in Professional Policing Practice degree programmes. Lecturers and police trainers should assist the students to learn how to apply their knowledge and skills in practical policing and help them to develop their attitude and behaviours accordingly. Integration of practice and theory is the central consideration of all learning [93] and students learn by doing and solving problems in real-life contexts [101, 102]. Rief ([103], p. 53) noted that students retain '10% of what they read, 20% of what they hear, 30% of what they see, 50% of what they see and hear, 70% of what they say and 90% of what they say and do'. A study by Kramer et al. [104] found that students taught by a practising faculty member scored higher as Good and Schubert [105] argue that they are able to relate theory to practice effectively. Genuine knowledge, understanding, and skills derive not from abstract thoughts, but rather

Undoubtedly an active learning environment enhances the integration of practice and theory in the classroom involving students [106]. However, a substantial amount of materials provided for these academic programmes is self-learning materials access through Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). It is, therefore, essential to make the online learning materials more interactive as most of the time the trainee officers have to engage with their online materials. These also need to be presented in an organised way so that student officers from diverse academic backgrounds find the provided materials user-friendly and to help them to bridge their knowledge and skill gaps to provide a comfortable and enjoyable learning

Because of the nature and structure of these programmes, different blending learning approaches are useful as the students can access their learning materials at any time from anywhere [107]. Apart from online live sessions, all electronic course materials could be downloaded in their devices and used offline. However, for online access they would require internet connection whether they are at their

by integrating thinking and practical application of the same.

Experience of police training in various parts of the world shows that the police

**16**

experience.
