Policing students celebrate diversity program graduation

Twenty-three participants from 14 countries are the most recent graduates of the Victoria Police Diversity Recruitment Program – a pathway towards a possible future career in policing – after a recent course completion ceremony in Melbourne.

Delivered by Victoria University in partnership with Jesuit Social Services, the 15-week program aims to increase the cultural diversity of Victoria’s police force and assist students from culturally and linguistically diverse communities to navigate the Victoria Police recruitment process.

Graduating students from the eighth round of the Victoria Police Diversity Recruitment Program at their course completion ceremony in Melbourne, 3 October 2022.

“Each and every one of you here tonight you bring that diversity of cultural experience, understanding and insight, which can only make Victoria Police the better and more fit to serve the diverse community that we are,” Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Luke Cornelius told graduates and their families at the West Melbourne ceremony.

Since its inception in 2018, the Victoria Police Diversity Recruitment Program supported 132 students from 46 countries to successfully complete the course. Fifty-five have sat and passed the Victoria Police entrance exam, and 21 now serve as members of the force.

Each and every one of you here tonight you bring that diversity of cultural experience, understanding and insight, which can only make Victoria Police the better and more fit to serve the diverse community that we are.

Luke Cornelius

Assistant Commissioner, Victoria Police

Participant Mariam Hamza told the graduation the program has helped her build self-belief and progress her career goals.

“We are a representation of the community,” she said of the graduating group.

“Doing this program has allowed me to understand: I fit in; this is attainable as a career, regardless of my culture or my religion. Victoria Police is an institution that will allow me to achieve that belief I thought was unattainable.”

Graduate Mariam Hamza told the graduation the program has helped her build self-belief and progress her career goals.

Program participants attend three nights per week of classes, which cover core topics in the entrance exam – including fitness, mathematics, and abstract reasoning – and give students opportunities to learn from guest speakers and police mentors, whose relationships with mentees extend beyond the life of the course.

“What you’ve learnt is not just technical skills – the swimming and the first aid and critical thinking – but what’s more important, I think, is two things people learn as they go through this program: self-belief, and the capacity to learn from each other,” said Victoria University Deputy Vice-Chancellor Dianne Semmens.

Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Luke Cornelius told graduates they will make valuable addition to the future diversity of the police force.

Doing this program has allowed me to understand: I fit in; this is attainable as a career, regardless of my culture or my religion. Victoria Police is an institution that will allow me to achieve that belief I thought was unattainable.”

Mariam Hamza

Victoria Police Diversity Recruitment Program participant

Countries represented in this eighth cohort include India, Indonesia, Thailand, Pakistan, Iraq, Mauritius, the Philippines, Sudan, Uganda, Turkey, China, Samoa, Tonga and New Zealand.

Eligibility for the Victoria Police Diversity Recruitment Program was expanded in this year’s Victorian Budget and the course is now available to eligible applications from any culturally and linguistically diverse background and participants who identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.