Warwickshire's Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) has blasted a proposal that all new police officers should obtain a degree.
Ron Ball, who represents Nuneaton, Bedworth, North Warwickshire and the rest of the county, has called the plan 'completely misguided'.
A consultation has been announced by the College of Policing into plans to make new applicants complete either a degree in practical policing or a conversion course after graduating in another subject.
The ideas have been resoundingly rejected by Warwickshire's commissioner.
Mr Ball said: "The obsession with academic qualifications and the belief that it brings some kind of guarantee of quality is completely misguided.
"One of the few advantages of age is that it brings with it experience and, over the years, I have had the privilege of working with hundreds of people, both graduates and non-graduates.
"There have been some of those with degrees – including from our most prestigious universities – that I wouldn't trust with organising breakfast.
"Equally, there are many non-graduates for whom I have the highest respect.
"Far more important than a degree is life experience and good-old-fashioned common sense for which academic qualifications are not awarded.
"Are we now abandoning the principle that 'the police are the public and the public are the police' in favour of one in which our police force is some sort of academic elite?
"Do we really want to insist that our police officers begin their careers saddled with the debts that academic courses bring and do we want to recruit only from the social classes that can afford to take the financial risks of enrolling on these courses?
"Of all the ideas that have been proposed for policing during my term of office, this has to be one of the worst.
"It has all the hallmarks of 'ivory tower' thinking and I hope that it is firmly consigned to the dustbin within a very short order before too much time and energy is wasted upon it."
Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2015 11:26 pm