| Abdul Hakiim Yakof |
UNIFORMED personnel in the country yesterday praised His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah ibni Al-Marhum Sultan Haji Omar ‘Ali Saifuddien Sa’adul Khairi Waddien, Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam’s call in a recent titah for enriching and upgrading the Sultanate’s quality of education.
On the sidelines of the His Majesty’s 70th birth anniversary royal banquet for uniformed personnel at the Istana Nurul Iman, Major Sopian bin Haji Mohd Yassin, Head of Sports Management at the Ministry of Defence, said that over the past few years the Royal Brunei Armed Forces (RBAF) has been getting more knowledgeable and competent young officers to serve in the military.
“The minimum requirement for army officers in the past was O levels but now we’ve upgraded it to HND or degree. We’ve increased the requirements to acquire better qualified officers who have studied overseas or locally,” he said.
“Even for the lower ranks, we have increased the requirement, previously we took in Year 9 school leavers, but now we’ve upgraded it to a minimum of two O levels.”
He said that it has been a positive move for the RBAF in terms of human resource management. “We have to be more competent and knowledgeable in terms of technical and mechanical aspects of weapons systems and should have the best practices followed by other armed forces in the region, as well as the rest of the world.
“Therefore we praise His Majesty’s titah encouraging lifelong learning for the serving officers and as well as continuous learning in terms of human resource development by the officers and men in the RBAF.”
L-R: Major Sopian bin Haji Mohd Yassin, Head of Sports Management at the Ministry of Defence; Senior Superintendent Kevin Chiuh, the Acting Director of the Criminal Investigation Department, Royal Brunei Police Force; and Colonel (Rtd) Pengiran Zulkifli bin Pengiran Haji Ismail, Director of the Brunei National Service Programme (PKBN). – PHOTOS: ABDUL HAKIIM YAKOF
In an interview, Senior Superintendent Kevin Chiuh, the Acting Director of the Criminal Investigation Department, Royal Brunei Police Force (RBPF), shared how the RBPF needs knowledgeable and highly motivated individuals to join the battle against modern day crime.
“At present, crimes are becoming more sophisticated. You have cybercrime and offences like murder and to tackle all these requires highly advanced scientific techniques. So specialisation is very important.”
“Right now we are fighting cybercrime, where you see hacking of bank accounts, siphoning off billions of dollars, and on our side for the law enforcement we are always one or two steps behind them. For them there are no borders, they can go into any country. For law enforcement to actually go after them, we are stuck because we cannot encroach to other countries borders. So we have a handicap in this sense. So you need to be very knowledgeable and of course need to collaborate with law enforcement agencies in other countries.”
He added that the RBPF has a cyber-crime unit at the moment which is manned by highly trained personnel.
“They are sent for overseas training every year, so we have good capable police officers. We also have commercial crime where we go after white collar perpetrators, these white collar crimes are normally committed by sophisticated criminals who know how to manipulate accounts and launder money, so in all these cases we need highly trained officers.”
In another interview, the Director of the Brunei National Service Programme (PKBN), Colonel (Rtd) Pengiran Zulkifli bin Pengiran Haji Ismail, shared that the PKBN agrees with His Majesty’s titah that education is a life-long investment that will determine the progress and regress of a nation.
“The PKBN trainees comprise youth aged 16 to 21 years, and most of them are students who are sitting for their O levels and A levels. However if there are those of them who didn’t have the chance to continue their studies in O levels or A levels, or wish to look for jobs, they are given the chance to continue their studies in the night classes to achieve minimum O levels required by any government or private sector agencies,” he said.
“All expenses are funded by the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports, beginning from the day they report for PKBN, including their tuition and examination fees. We encourage them to achieve a high level in academics so that they have good careers,” he added.
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