Online video lessons keep police recruits engaged

Mysuru: It’s not just schools and colleges, even police training schools and the Karnataka Police Academy that imparts training to new recruits, have gone online this lockdown season.
According to sources, when the lockdown started, the training of police recruits was cut short and they were sent back to their respective districts, but the authorities of training institutes continue to provide them classes. Videos of theory classes and outdoor activities are being shared over social networking groups to the trainees whose services are being used by the department for lockdown duty. They have been deployed at check-points to assist the officers.
The Karnataka Police Academy imparts training to direct recruits in the rank of sub-inspector and above, besides orientation classes to officers while the police training school provides training to constables, who are the lowest rung of the ladder in the department.
Dharnidevi Malagatti, principal of Police Training School, Mysuru, told TOI that following a circular from police headquarters, the training was discontinued and all the trainees were sent back to respective districts from where they have been selected. They are assisting the officers in lockdown duty, she said.
“The training school had 243 trainees, all girls, who had completed one-month training. They were supposed to undergo training for nearly a year. Owing to the current situation and following the directive, they have been asked to return to their respective districts. However, we have been sharing few videos of indoor/outdoor activities with the trainees through social media platforms to an extent, albeit not on a full-scale,” she said.
Likewise, probationary sub-inspectors attached to different wings of police department including wireless and fingerprint sections who are undergoing training at Karnataka Police Academy too have returned to respective districts and they too are receiving video classes online, sources said.