Home Team taps VR to develop trainers' soft skills

The Home Team Academy is using virtual reality (VR) technology to develop its trainers' soft skills to help them in their work of honing the skills of the next generation of officers.

These soft skills include classroom management, handling disruptive behaviour in the classroom, pedagogy and presentation skills.

VR technology has been used to train officers in hard skills such as handling firearms, but this is the first time it is being used by the academy to develop soft skills, said Home Team Academy chief executive Anwar Abdullah on Tuesday.

The academy develops the skills of trainers across agencies including the Singapore Police Force, Singapore Civil Defence Force, Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA), Singapore Prison Service and Central Narcotics Bureau. These trainers can then better conduct training for officers in their organisations.

The academy conducted 20 sessions of VR training between last October and March this year for 113 trainers. The trainers were presented with virtual scenarios. One scenario was of a learner disrupting the lesson, and the trainers had to decide on the appropriate action. Their performance was reviewed by a coach and this was followed by discussion, reflection and feedback.

Mr Anwar said VR technology is one of the many ways to explore trainers' development. "Virtual reality offers us an additional means where we can better prepare and equip our trainers to be more competent, more proficient and more ready to handle different kinds of scenarios."

Mr Brian Lin, director of the Centre for Learning Systems at the Home Team Academy, said rapid technological advancement has disrupted the way organisations operate. He said the Covid-19 pandemic has changed how training is conducted at the Home Team and accelerated the pace of technology adoption. "(Our trainers) will need to constantly learn, unlearn and relearn to stay relevant."

Ms Sophia Ng, 31, principal trainer at the ICA Training Command, who has attended the training session, said: "I think it is refreshing that they are able to convert classroom sessions into virtual environments that are so realistic and allow the trainers to understand better, for example, our presentation methods.

"It triggers us to think whether we are doing it in the actual environment as well and makes us reflect on how we can improve."