Express News Service
NEW DELHI: P Vijayan, an officer of the Indian Police Service (IPS), who conceptualised the first-of-its-kind initiative called ‘Student Police Cadets’ has come a long way with this project. He worked day in and day out for two years on designing and developing India’s unique concept-Student Police Cadet(SPC).
Now, there are 2 lakhs SPCs across the country who are assisting the cops in law and order and spreading brotherhood in different states after being trained through the module developed by this senior IPS officer.
Speaking to TNIE here recently, P Vijayan said: “The next two years were spent on designing a structure for the project and it was implemented in the pilot phase in 2008. The Government of Kerala took over the project in 2010. Batches of 44 students each in 127 schools – a total of 5,588 cadets were introduced to the SPC motto ‘We Learn To Serve ’in August 2 in 2010”.
Since 2010, the SPC project has created an immense impact among the students, parents, teachers and police personnel at large and nurturing change leaders, who are evolving to become informed citizens with unwavering civic commitment and responsibilities and upholding the idea of ‘India First’.
Spelling out the basic idea of SPC, he said that the idea is to support the systemic use of partnerships and problem-solving techniques. The Student Police Cadet (SPC) Project is the most impactful reform made in the field of youth empowerment and capacity building of children.
“Basically, the SPC project is a two-year training system meant for high school students to evolve as responsible and capable citizens by inculcating respect for the law, inner capability, self-discipline, civic sense, empathy for the vulnerable sections of society and resistance to social evils”, said he, addingthat it sharpens essential skills-Critical Thinking, Creativity, Communication and Collaboration.
It is designed as a partnership programme between State Government Departments of Home, Education, Health, Forest, Excise, SC/ST, Social Welfare and Civil society at large.
Upon being asked how did he get such an idea, he said: “I got the idea about the project while interacting with school children in Kochi City in 2006, when I was the City Police Commissioner and had started working on the model which could be used as a platform for bringing children closer to police and other legal functionaries”.
He said that Narendra Modi, then Chief Minister of Gujarat in 2013, was impressed with the SPC, and sent a delegation, led by Hasmukh Patel IPS, to Kerala to study the programme. Later, Gujarat government, following the report of the delegation launched the SPC programme on a large scale in various schools.
After a few months, Gujarat was followed by Haryana, Rajasthan and Karnataka governments. “ But the next big turn in SPC history happened when the then Union Minister for Home Rajnath Singh visited Kerala in January 2017 and got impressed by the show of professional discipline, enthusiasm and patriotic spirit of more than 6,000 cadets”, he said.
As a result of Singh’s satisfaction, the Bureau of Police Research and Development prepared a detailed report for a national roll-out. “A mega event was convened at Gurugram (then Gudgaon) in Haryana, where thousands of children that included 30 Student Police Cadets each from all States gathered. The then Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, in the presence of the Union Human Resources Development Minister Prakash Javedkar, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar and other dignitaries rolled out SPC on a national level in July 2018”, Vijayan added.
He said that the SPC project right now has been adopted in 1,000 schools in Kerala and 86,000 cadets are undergoing training through a well-structured and well-researched training curriculum spread over 7,000 hours.
After the national rollout of the programme, the SPC has been adopted in 12,000 schools across India. “Impressed at the impact of the SPC project, the UNICEF declared Student Police Cadets as ‘Child Right Ambassadors’. Delegates started visiting from Tanzania, Ghana and Kazakhstan and there were enquiries about the programme from Sri Lanka, Maldives and many other countries”, he claimed.
Apart from this, this IPS officer has also played an instrumental role in developing the child-friendly police stations “ At present, there are 142 child-friendly police stations across Kerala, with 10,000+ police personnel trained through a well-designed SOP”, he said.
NEW DELHI: P Vijayan, an officer of the Indian Police Service (IPS), who conceptualised the first-of-its-kind initiative called ‘Student Police Cadets’ has come a long way with this project. He worked day in and day out for two years on designing and developing India’s unique concept-Student Police Cadet(SPC).
Now, there are 2 lakhs SPCs across the country who are assisting the cops in law and order and spreading brotherhood in different states after being trained through the module developed by this senior IPS officer.
Speaking to TNIE here recently, P Vijayan said: “The next two years were spent on designing a structure for the project and it was implemented in the pilot phase in 2008. The Government of Kerala took over the project in 2010. Batches of 44 students each in 127 schools – a total of 5,588 cadets were introduced to the SPC motto ‘We Learn To Serve ’in August 2 in 2010”.
Since 2010, the SPC project has created an immense impact among the students, parents, teachers and police personnel at large and nurturing change leaders, who are evolving to become informed citizens with unwavering civic commitment and responsibilities and upholding the idea of ‘India First’.
Spelling out the basic idea of SPC, he said that the idea is to support the systemic use of partnerships and problem-solving techniques. The Student Police Cadet (SPC) Project is the most impactful reform made in the field of youth empowerment and capacity building of children.
“Basically, the SPC project is a two-year training system meant for high school students to evolve as responsible and capable citizens by inculcating respect for the law, inner capability, self-discipline, civic sense, empathy for the vulnerable sections of society and resistance to social evils”, said he, adding
that it sharpens essential skills-Critical Thinking, Creativity, Communication and Collaboration.
It is designed as a partnership programme between State Government Departments of Home, Education, Health, Forest, Excise, SC/ST, Social Welfare and Civil society at large.
Upon being asked how did he get such an idea, he said: “I got the idea about the project while interacting with school children in Kochi City in 2006, when I was the City Police Commissioner and had started working on the model which could be used as a platform for bringing children closer to police and other legal functionaries”.
He said that Narendra Modi, then Chief Minister of Gujarat in 2013, was impressed with the SPC, and sent a delegation, led by Hasmukh Patel IPS, to Kerala to study the programme. Later, Gujarat government, following the report of the delegation launched the SPC programme on a large scale in various schools.
After a few months, Gujarat was followed by Haryana, Rajasthan and Karnataka governments. “ But the next big turn in SPC history happened when the then Union Minister for Home Rajnath Singh visited Kerala in January 2017 and got impressed by the show of professional discipline, enthusiasm and patriotic spirit of more than 6,000 cadets”, he said.
As a result of Singh’s satisfaction, the Bureau of Police Research and Development prepared a detailed report for a national roll-out. “A mega event was convened at Gurugram (then Gudgaon) in Haryana, where thousands of children that included 30 Student Police Cadets each from all States gathered. The then Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, in the presence of the Union Human Resources Development Minister Prakash Javedkar, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar and other dignitaries rolled out SPC on a national level in July 2018”, Vijayan added.
He said that the SPC project right now has been adopted in 1,000 schools in Kerala and 86,000 cadets are undergoing training through a well-structured and well-researched training curriculum spread over 7,000 hours.
After the national rollout of the programme, the SPC has been adopted in 12,000 schools across India. “Impressed at the impact of the SPC project, the UNICEF declared Student Police Cadets as ‘Child Right Ambassadors’. Delegates started visiting from Tanzania, Ghana and Kazakhstan and there were enquiries about the programme from Sri Lanka, Maldives and many other countries”, he claimed.
Apart from this, this IPS officer has also played an instrumental role in developing the child-friendly police stations “ At present, there are 142 child-friendly police stations across Kerala, with 10,000+ police personnel trained through a well-designed SOP”, he said.
