Brainy coppers

Just read on the BBC website that from 2020 all new Police recruits will need to be educated up to degree level.

I know the job of policing has changed a lot over the years but why does your average copper on the beat need a degree? Is a degree going to make them better prepared for the chavvy scrotes littering our high streets and pubs?

Although I'm sure they're well paid these days, I don't really understand why anyone educated to that level would choose such a career.

I was seriously encouraged to try and join the police force when I was a young and didn't have a clue what I was going to do.

The threat of it was what ultimately gave me a kick up the arse to go and spend the next 3 years getting a degree so that I didn't have to spend the rest of my life dealing with rotten people and becoming a bitter bastard.

Let's face it, anybody can get a degree nowadays.

It's not like it was in our day when you actually had to plug your brain in and put some effort in.

My brother in law's step daughter has just graduated from Manchester Met with a degree in Psychology.

And no offence to the girl, but she's thick as fuck.

They must be giving them away nowadays...

I think its a cyclic thing. There are so many people who have degrees nowadays, that employers can raise the standard as they see it. However, as a Radio Officer, in my past life, where we learned radio theory, high speed morse, etc, we were told that only those with degrees, or who had been through the radio college, would be accepted into the trade, (we were nearly all ex forces). It didn't work, because there are many practical skills and abilities that don't/can't rely just on brainpower, and the plan was dropped fairly quickly. We were there to do a job, not sit down and discuss it.

I have an inside track on this as I lecture in one of the older universities and therefore I'm heavily involved in awarding degrees. I might get shot for saying this but some of the people we give degrees to are the last people I would want to see in police uniform.
Having a degree is entirely unnecessary for competent policing.

rammywhite wrote:I have an inside track on this as I lecture in one of the older universities and therefore I'm heavily involved in awarding degrees. I might get shot for saying this but some of the people we give degrees to are the last people I would want to see in police uniform.
Having a degree is entirely unnecessary for competent policing.

Many people i know who have taken degree courses while academically intelligent are lacking in common sense, I would rather have someone with common sense policing than someone who can read books and remember loads of useless information.

finlaymcdanger wrote:The threat of it was what ultimately gave me a kick up the arse to go and spend the next 3 years getting a degree so that I didn't have to spend the rest of my life dealing with rotten people and becoming a bitter bastard.

So what went wrong?

Natasha Whittam wrote:

finlaymcdanger wrote:The threat of it was what ultimately gave me a kick up the arse to go and spend the next 3 years getting a degree so that I didn't have to spend the rest of my life dealing with rotten people and becoming a bitter bastard.

So what went wrong?

That is a very good question

whatsgoingon wrote:

rammywhite wrote:I have an inside track on this as I lecture in one of the older universities and therefore I'm heavily involved in awarding degrees. I might get shot for saying this but some of the people we give degrees to are the last people I would want to see in police uniform.
Having a degree is entirely unnecessary for competent policing.

Many people i know who have taken degree courses while academically intelligent are lacking in common sense, I would rather have someone with common sense policing than someone who can read books and remember loads of useless information.

The girl I mentioned is barely literate (in addition to scoring poorly on the common sense register).

I saw an essay she'd written once (on a PC, obviously, kids don't even know how to hold a pen nowadays) and it was terrible - awful prose, shite spelling, no punctuation, weird paragraph breaks and it generally looked as though it'd been done by a chimp.

But she got a 2:1

Laughable...

Almost half the population have degrees these days compared to the 3% who had them in the 60s so it's not such a big deal although I question the point of having a degree to be a copper unless the degree is in Criminology or something equally relevant to the role they are taking up within the police.

wanderlust wrote:Almost half the population have degrees these days compared to the 3% who had them in the 60s so it's not such a big deal although I question the point of having a degree to be a copper unless the degree is in Criminology or something equally relevant to the role they are taking up within the police.

I agree. I think the proposal is totally unfeasible. The Police Force recruit from all walks of life and all sections of our society not just the academic elite.

Just because you've got a degree nowadays, it doesn't automatically follow that you're part of any "academic elite".

And that was my point - any dickhead whose Mummy & Daddy can afford to pay for it can go to university nowadays, whether they're academically up to the job or not.

It's like anything else in life, if you drop standards to give more people a chance of "achieving their goals", you fuck everything up and wind up with partially sighted airline pilots, 5 ft tall, weakling firemen and hospital doctors who can't spell Penicillin, let alone know when it should be prescribed.

We set challenging standards for a reason.

wanderlust wrote:Almost half the population have degrees these days compared to the 3% who had them in the 60s so it's not such a big deal although I question the point of having a degree to be a copper unless the degree is in Criminology or something equally relevant to the role they are taking up within the police.

Forget Criminology, it's the ones with degrees in Creative Writing who'll be snapped up first - somebody has to fill in all those report sheets.

Bread2.0 wrote:and hospital doctors who can't spell Penicillin

Be honest, you checked the spelling didn't you.

Natasha Whittam wrote:

Bread2.0 wrote:and hospital doctors who can't spell Penicillin

Be honest, you checked the spelling didn't you.

It's like you're in my head.

Stop it.

it's actually Phenoxymethylpenicillin these days but we still use the old name in the trade 

Bread2.0 wrote:

whatsgoingon wrote:

rammywhite wrote:I have an inside track on this as I lecture in one of the older universities and therefore I'm heavily involved in awarding degrees. I might get shot for saying this but some of the people we give degrees to are the last people I would want to see in police uniform.
Having a degree is entirely unnecessary for competent policing.

Many people i know who have taken degree courses while academically intelligent are lacking in common sense, I would rather have someone with common sense policing than someone who can read books and remember loads of useless information.

The girl I mentioned is barely literate (in addition to scoring poorly on the common sense register).

I saw an essay she'd written once (on a PC, obviously, kids don't even know how to hold a pen nowadays) and it was terrible - awful prose, shite spelling, no punctuation, weird paragraph breaks and it generally looked as though it'd been done by a chimp.

But she got a 2:1

Laughable...

Never the main focal point of the essay, did she use shud of or shud av?