When Yen Shih-si, president of the Central Police College, was Taipei City chief of police, he once said that his greatest aspiration was to engage in education.

So has his wish been fulfilled?

He hastens to explain: "When I said education, I didn't mean being college president."

What he had had in mind was something like the happy experience he once had teaching an introductory law course at Tamkang University, discussing and researching the subject along with his students.

Education, he says, is the basis for everything. The Taipei police department, for example, is spending several billion NT dollars on advanced equipment, such as computer monitors for squad cars, in its campaign to modernize the police force. "But if the people we educate lack modern concepts and modern information, what good are the machines?" he asks.

Society today is changing rapidly, creating many problems. Yen believes that new problems must be solved with new concepts and new methods; the worst thing is to try to deal with new problems with old concepts and methods.

For example, revisions to the criminal code have limited the powers of arresting officers in the interests of protecting privacy and human rights. "If a policeman still uses the old method of handling the problem," he says, "he'll be breaking the law himself."

President Yen has always stressed the importance of legal knowledge in police work. As he once said, "A policeman's weapon is not a gun; it's the law." Conversely, he feels, asking an officer to deal with a situation in which the law is unclear is like asking him to go into battle without a gun.

Yen Shih-si worked his way up from the ranks--from a basic patrol officer, to district captain, to tri-county police chief, to dean of the Taiwan Police Academy, to Taipei City police chief, and finally to his present position. His thorough familiarity with the practical requirements of police work enables him to integrate education with practice.

As president of the Central Police College, Yen hopes to strengthen interaction between the school and the police force by sending instructors into the field for regular periods of time and by selecting appropriate personnel from the force to teach at the college.

Yen, who holds a master's degree in police administration from San Jose State University, also discussed police education in the U.S. Some police departments there provide funding to assist policemen in acquiring advanced degrees. "American police authorities feel that supporting policemen in obtaining higher degrees will make them perform better on the job and will raise their image and social status, serving both public and private interests." Yen believes that this is a concept that deserves studying.

Based on that thinking, Yen has made every effort to raise the quality of the ROC's police force. He energetically promoted the elevation in status of the Taiwan Police Academy to a two-year junior college five years ago, a move which he believes will attract more outstanding young people to the school.

Under the new system, graduates of the new two-year program will not only obtain a junior-college diploma upon graduation but may transfer directly to the college as third-year students and obtain a bachelor's degree two years later.

The quality of students at the Central Police College has always been high, but the proportion of positions occupied by graduates of the college in the nation's police departments remains less than twenty percent. President Yen believes that raising the quality of the police force will require comprehensive efforts aimed at the system as a whole, and that relying solely the Central Police College is inadequate.

He added that the college this year will take in thirty transfer students and that he plans to increase the opportunity for policemen to enter the college for further training in the future.

As to what steps will be taken to raise the college's academic standards and improve its academic system, President Yen replies, "I haven't been in office very long. Give me a little time, will you?"