The 6th Association of Police Training Institutions in Asia (APTA) General Assembly Annual Meeting was conducted on the 31st August 2022, hosted by Korean National Police University (KNPU) virtually. This meeting was attended by the Director of Plans and programmes, Police Supt. Jacky Tang Yik Tung, representing ASEANAPOL secretariat as Dialogue Partner to APTA.
The meeting inaugurated by the current President of APTA, Ms. Song Jeong Ae, who welcomed all delegates from their Member Institutions (MIs) and Dialogue Partners (DPs). The president briefed a short history of the establishment of APTA and highlighted the imperatives of this Institution in sharing policing knowledge, thought, education and more effort in facing modern challenges especially after the Pandemic. This was followed by the Vice President of APTA, Mr Sevilla Fernando, who is from the Public Safety College of the Philippines. He re-emphasised the importance of improving police education across the Asia Pacific region, sharing experiences, promote understanding and to grow together in order to flourish between MIs of this region.
Director of the APTA Secretariat, Ms Kim Jae Mi, reported the progress over the last five years since their establishment in 2017, the achievement including transferring their Vision into action, online training, development of their annual bulletin, exchange programs and cooperation amongst their Police Training Institutions, etcetera.
The main agenda for the 6th APTA was the voting of the new President and two Vice Presidents of the Associations, then followed by the selection of the next venue for the 7th APTA, GAAM and the acceptance of new Membership Application from the Qatar Police College (QPC) and the Academy of Ministry of Internal Affairs (AMIA), Uzbekistan. Voting resulted with the KNPU still holds the President position while University of Internal Affairs (UIA), Mongolia and People’s Police Academy (PPA), Viet Nam holds the vice-presidential posts. The venue for the next 7th APTA event was voted with majority favoured in Mongolia at the UIA. Similarly, voting for both the new applicant Institutions (QPC and AMIA) are accepted with open-arms to be the new MIs.
Among the highlights of the meeting were the presentations of Member Institutions from Hong Kong Police College, University of Malaya, Philippines Public Safety Academy, KNPU, Royal Police Cadet Academy of Thailand and Rashtriya Raksha University respectively, which showcase respective facilities, visions and mandates. All presentations show the abundance of modern police training facilities readily available to MIs’s officers to achieve the common goal in sustaining peace and stability of the Asia Pacific region. The occasion was concluded successfully and KNPU will follow up with future meetings and conferences related to APTA.
