Mike Bowron, who has served in Jersey since 2011, said there were more important skills for an officer to have than academic qualifications and added that he would not want to risk excluding potentially outstanding candidates by introducing degree criteria.
Recently the College of Policing, which is responsible for setting standards of ethics and training for the police service in the UK, announced that all new police officers in England and Wales would have to be educated to degree level from 2020.
Prospective officers can either complete a three-year so-called degree apprenticeship, a postgraduate conversion course or a degree. Authorities are in discussions with 12 universities. It is said the training will help address the shift in crime-fighting, which is moving increasingly towards digital evidence and cyber-crime.
But Mr Bowron, who did not have a degree when he first joined Sussex police as a rookie officer in 1980, said more than anything police officers need a ‘degree in common sense’.
