The Open University renews contract with North Yorkshire Police to continue delivering specialist learning to police recruits

The Open University (OU) Department for Policing has agreed a new contract with North Yorkshire Police (NYP) to continue delivering a suite of blended learning qualifications that equip officers with the skills required to meet the demands of twenty-first century policing.

The OU/NYP partnership have developed four education pathways to support routes into policing; the Police Constable Degree Apprenticeship (PCDA), the Degree Holder Entry Programme (DHEP), the Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) Apprenticeship and the Special Constable Learning Programme. They all  follow the College of Policing’s National Policing Curriculum underpinning the Policing Education Qualifications Framework (PEQF) to equip the students with the educational base to complement their operational experience in supporting policing and the communities they serve.

Since it launched in 2020, the collaborative programme has been a huge success with over 300 new recruits joining the force through the OU pathways and contributing towards NYP exceeding their Home Office recruitment target.

The first two cohorts of officers who successfully completed the PCDA are due to graduate in October 2023.

Jennifer Norman, Head of Policing at The Open University, said:

“I am absolutely thrilled to continue working with North Yorkshire Police co-delivering the police education programmes we have established. Our partnership ethos is fully collaborative and centred around supporting the police practitioners who engage with our learning to ensure their success in policing, for them, for NYP and the communities within North Yorkshire. We are immensely proud to work with NYP and see the students involved in our programmes develop their careers in policing.”

Catherine Convery-Brown, Learning and Development Manager, North Yorkshire Police, said:

“The Open University is the ideal partner for North Yorkshire. Their decades of experience in supporting on-line learning is ideal for our force and the geographical area that we serve.

“Our police trainers work with The Open University to complement the academic elements of the training with all the practical aspects to make sure our students are then safe and legal to undertake their policing role.”

The award-winning Centre for Policing Research and Learning (CPRL) sits within the OU Department for Policing. CPRL undertakes ground-breaking research on contemporary police issues and is a collaborative partnership between Open University academics and 26 police forces in the UK. The CPRL partnership aims to improve policing for the public good through its unique collaborative approach and the synergies between research, learning and enabling knowledge into practice and into the curriculum.  

Creating these bespoke learning programmes, informed by research knowledge, captures the complex challenges faced by the police. For North Yorkshire Police, this context is vital, as geographically it is the biggest force in England and Wales, with a diverse mix of urban and rural communities.  

Jo Lambert, Director of Teaching for Policing at the OU, comments:

“Our first degree ceremony will be a very special day for all concerned. The PCDA students graduating in October have truly helped to shape the educational experience of student officers coming after them and we have all learned so much from their journeys, which started at the height of COVID-19 but will culminate in a traditional ceremony.”