Chief Constable Fahy labelled the 'university of life' approach to teaching police trainees as 'bull****' and said current training in the force was substandard.
The cop boss was speaking at an open meeting of the Police Federation in Manchester city centre when he made the comments.
His comments were reported in independent magazine Police Review.
A GMP spokesman said the comments were made while Mr Fahy was chatting to a colleague, and not as part of an official statement.
Mr Fahy, 46, said: "There is an issue here about status. The system is not terribly different from the one I joined 29 years ago.
Complex
"My big concern is that we are sending out a lot of officers now into very complex world, with far higher levels of scrutiny and I am not sure we are equipping them.
"The trouble is that when people like me go into battle for policing they look at you and say you are just plod."
He later added: "I have worked with some of those detectives who have been through the university of life and I have to be honest with you - it was bull****."
He stressed that people should not necessarily have a degree to enter the police, but that police training should lead to a qualification equivalent to a degree.
Police training currently lasts two years and is divided between a training centre and on-the-job experience.
Chief Constable Peter Fahy
We are sending out a lot of officers now into very complex world, with far higher levels of scrutiny and I am not sure we are equipping them
In Police Review, one officer said: "When I joined, the lads that taught me had studied at the university of life. They were the very epitome of detectives. These were people who did not even have O Levels."
John Giblin, secretary of the professional development sub-committee of the Police Federation of England and Wales, said: "Does a degree make you a better police officer? I do not know. But I think what is more important is getting the training right. I do think the training needs to be underscored by something, maybe a degree, but the real key is getting quality training."
Greater Manchester Police did not want to make further comment on the matter.
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Is It Me? (20/11/2009 at 12:06)
Stevedore, Quayside (20/11/2009 at 12:14)
Dick Burns, Heald Green (20/11/2009 at 12:23)
Shark Sandwich, Heaton Moor (20/11/2009 at 12:29)
ThinkTank, North Mcr (20/11/2009 at 12:35)
Steve an alternative view (20/11/2009 at 12:48)
Police training has been lacking for the last 30+ years but if he’s only just realised that after speaking to detectives then he really needs to get out and speak to his officers.
I would suggest that at least 50% of detectives couldn’t detect their socks in a morning if it wasn’t for the aroma, so how can he use them as a shining example.
There is a huge amount to be said for common sense and a practical approach something that GMP and the police in general lost years ago and if Mr Fahey thinks that by insulting his colleagues he’s going to repair that, then he’s badly mistaken.
Obviously degrees in French and Spanish provided him with all the required training!
citycentre, manchester (20/11/2009 at 12:48)
The first "Peeler" recruited was dismissed after 4 hours
Steven Adler (20/11/2009 at 12:52)
Sam Anderson (20/11/2009 at 12:55)
Panzer 391, Salford (20/11/2009 at 12:59)
BLUE DIBBLE, ashton (20/11/2009 at 12:59)
to the point, bury (20/11/2009 at 13:03)
tiggerluc, somewhere in shaw (20/11/2009 at 13:04)
PW, Manchester (20/11/2009 at 13:08)
Perhaps mortar boards and gowns would be better than helmets and tunics for keeping the rain off.
Sorry, I just thought the Police already had their work cut out with the proliferation of scummy criminals. I was wrong.
Black Flag (20/11/2009 at 13:12)
I think that kind of "criminals have more rights than the cops" idiocy is what Fahy is highlighting.
Stevedore, Quayside (20/11/2009 at 13:12)
I don't know whether this story has been twisted or not and have no way of telling so I take it at face value. Some years ago one of my brothers joined the Metropolitan Police and was sent for training at the police college at Hendon. Like the system today, my brother was a probationary police office for a two year period and his time was divided between academic work at college and on the job practical work at local police stations; he always maintained that he learned more about the job out in the field than he did sitting in the college. My own experience has been similar. I needed to obtain a degree to enter the profession which I wanted to join and thus studied at University for three years to get the required degree. After getting a position in the profession, I learnt more in the first six months in the job through practical experience than I did at the three years at university and often wondered why I needed to go to universty in the first place. Whilst I agree that police officers and other public service employees need to be of the highest standards and professionalism I don't necessarily agree that they need a degree to get to that level and that quality on the job training would help to achieve the required level.
Technobabble, Manchester (20/11/2009 at 13:23)
Having a degree does not automatically mean you are capable of doing everything. Speaking as an engineer, specialising in field work, I have no problem admitting to being a poor academic; my grade of degree isn’t exactly brilliant... I just could never get my head round the paperwork! At the same time I’ve met plenty of genius academics who couldn’t find their way around a screwdriver without a three-page diagram!
The same goes for rank-and-file police officers (and a know a few personally). Being successful in a university classroom does not mean that you have the ability to think on your feet, deal with the public, or have the instinct to spot potential criminal behaviour out of the corner of your eye.
The biggest problem with the police currently is that they are not permitted to use their instincts, nowse, experience or initiative, because the top-down centralised control that New Labour has imposed stifles all that. When they encounter X event, they have to act in Y manner for Z outcome. No ifs or buts. Mr Fahy should really stop waffling about degrees and instead work at letting his officers do the job they have all CHOSEN to do. And if they are going out "ill-equipped" then maybe that should be dealt by additional training within the force, instead of pushing even more people into pointless degrees and all their associated debt.
ebble, manchester (20/11/2009 at 13:28)
Mrs Jammy, Sitting on the settee (20/11/2009 at 13:29)
Idroid, city centre (20/11/2009 at 13:34)
I'll I'm botherd about, is that they are sharp and can think like a devious criminal and that they are doing the job for the right reasons and are responsible with the power they are given. You don't need a degree for that and you should'nt have to have one to enter the police.
There are different types of clever and sometimes clever people don't always go to university, they prefer to use and develop their skills in a very focused, specific, direct way, tailored to a job role or profession.
The police play such an important part in society for better or worse, that the training programme should be of a high standard but not bogged down by essays and disserations like a traditional degree. You can measure someones brain power and common sense in lots of ways, more suited to the role they are training for. If you want to call it a degree or the equivalent of, i don't see the problem with that.
If the current training programme is failing to develop police trainees in the ways needed to cope and deal with a wide range of people and situations, then it's not unreasonable to highlight that. Basically, if it needs improving, sort it out.
Bertie McGrew , Northern Countryside (20/11/2009 at 13:58)
Police Officers have to have better training certainly, in interpersonal skills primarily because I, and many other innocent speeding motorists, are paying their salaries each month. And a little respect may well get a better response.
However I would expect the higher the chain of command they go, the better educated they need to be. Hence the examinatiosn to get promotion. If degree level is required at CI level so be it, but at entry level they need a degree from the university of life which at 20, they certainly haven't got. No Police Officer should be allowed to join unless he/she can display basic interpersonal and communication skills.
That said I know a number of Police Officers, all of whom are truly fantastic blokes.
Black Flag (20/11/2009 at 14:11)
Is that where you go after you've been educated at the school of hard knocks and the sixth form college of meaningless cliches?
samantha fogg (20/11/2009 at 14:53)
from my experience of the police and i mean all police officers including the noddy bobbies. 50% are stupid and couldnt do their job if it hit in them in the face at 100mph and the other 50% are bullies who just go into the police force to abuse the power that being a police officer gives them.
and as for fahy i dont rate him. i prefered the late mike todd. if you had a problem that wasnt being dealt with properly by rank and file officers, he would personally get involved. whereas fahy is just a puppet on a string.
citycentre, manchester (20/11/2009 at 14:55)
So you require an entry level cliche that no one at entry level age can have, do you think this may cause a recruitment problem?
And as you say, at higher levels a higher standard of education may be required; but that is what Mr Fahy says should happen, a higher standard of training.
Oh and Dixon was not real, but a film and TV chachter.
Stevedore, Quayside (20/11/2009 at 15:20)
So ypu know, or at least have expereience of, every police officer not only in the GMP but in the country as a whole to enable you make such an outrageous assertion that 50% are stupid and that 50% are bullies. Would you be prepared to stand up at the police federation conference or indeed say it to an individual police officer face to face; no, thought not. It is you who is stupid for making such a comment.