A pilot project began in Police Training School (PTS) on April 28 to select 60 odd e-Learning modules produced by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to see if any of the modules can be adopted by the Force, Customs and Excise Department and Immigration Department.

Mr Sham presenting a souvenir to UN officer, Mr Townsend

Programme Officer (Money Laundering) of UNODC Mr Adam Townsend, Commandant of Customs and Excise Training School Mr Li Chung-leung, and Commandant of Immigration Service Training School Mr Shum Hi-keung.

In his speech, Mr Sham Wai-kin said the Force, Customs and Excise Department and Immigration Department recognised e-Learning as a very powerful tool that would make their training programmes more flexible, effective, efficient and economical. It would also be a key to helping the three departments achieve their visions and missions. The ultimate objective is to bring about improvements to duty performances and make Hong Kong a safe place for all.

"The Force has embraced e-Learning for some years and has developed over 30 e-Learning packages. It is our strategy to strengthen collaboration with local and overseas law enforcement agencies in e-Learning development so that we could share experience and knowledge and to learn from each other. This pilot with UNODC will be a fruitful one as UNODC has produced 60 e-Learning packages that have been delivered successfully in many countries.

"Today we have the great honour of having Mr Townsend from UNODC to run the train- the-trainers session," Mr Sham added.

After his speech, Mr Sham, together with the Training School Commandants of Customs and Excise Department and Immigration Department, presented souvenirs to Mr Townsend in appreciation of his assistance.

The Training Wing has found that many of the UNODC e-Learning modules, such as those on "Drug Identification", "Car Search" and "Money Laundering", will be useful not only for anti-drug operations but also anti-crime operations in general. It has also found that many other modules are also relevant to Customs and Excise and Immigration law enforcement. Therefore, it was proposed later that a pilot test be run in PTS' e-Learning Centre for officers from the Force, Customs and Excise Department and Immigration Department.

Besides officers from Development Learning Division, Detective Training Division, Narcotics Bureau, Training Development Bureau, and frontline units such as Special Duties Squads and Taskforces, officers from Customs and Excise Department and Immigration Department are taking part in the evaluation project.

The first and second phases of the project, namely "Train-the-Trainers" and "Trainer Evaluation" sessions, have been completed. The last phase, the "Trainee Evaluation" session, is scheduled to be completed at the end of July.

In the first phase, Mr Townsend provided training on applications of the modules for trainers from the three departments. In the second phase, trainers evaluated the relevancy and value of all the modules, and planned the schedules for trainees to evaluate individual modules.

The last phase is underway, with trainees from the three departments evaluating selected modules. With the help of the Learning Management System software, evaluation data will be collated and assessed with the assistance of the Force Training Officer.

On completion of the pilot project, trainers of the three departments will identify modules that may be adopted by their departments, and the identified modules will be provided with Cantonese commentary if necessary.