Founding principles

After achieving independence in 1945, Korean police education institute was
‘National Police Technical School’, which was established in 1946. Following
various effort to modernise the school, its name was change by ‘Police College’,
as the name was regarded as quite vocational. However, modernisation of police
required more than just the change of its name to make police reform in respect
with professionalism. In 1972, the Ministry of Home Affairs reported the necessity
of unification of police education institute and establishment of a 4-year course
police college of higher education through a policy report, named ‘Direction of
Korean Police for the 1970s’. Nonetheless, the implementation of police college
creation was not initiated at once, contrary to other police training school unification policy.
Afterwards, the Korean National Police Agency commissioned a study for professionalizing
police investigation to KIST(Korea Institute of Science and Technology) on Oct 1977.
Through the vast survey of citizen and police station, they recommended the establishment
of 4-year course police college, emphasising the necessity of improving the level of
investigator’s quality. This can be assessed as a rational reason for the college creation, however, the report inclined more into military
academy style.
In addition, the lowering quality of applicants for police cadet, originated from abolishment of academic background in applying for
police cadet by the government policy, also played a part for promoting legislation of the police college(from below, KNPU).
With this background, the KNPA organised a working committee for establishing police university on June 1979. This group exerted
themselves to recruit first freshman in 1980. Consequently, the legislative bill for KNPU passed national assembly approval on December
28, 1979. The first entrance ceremony held on March 9, 1981. That is how it all started.

• 1970~1980
  • 1979 - KNPU Establishment Act Enacted
• 1980~1990
  • 1980 - RIPS(Research Institute of Police Science) established
  • 1981 - The 1st KNPU student entered at Bu-pyeong
  • 1981 - National Police Philhamonic Orchestra & Police Honor Guard established
  • 1981 - Young-in campus built
  • 1983 - Moved to Yong-in
  • 1983 - Senior-superintendent courses initiated
  • 1983 - Senior police executive courses initiated
  • 1985 - The 1st Commencement held
  • 1989 - First 5 female students entered
• 1990~2000
  • 1990 - KNPU scholarship foundation established
  • 1997 - Female students quota increased to 12
• 2000~2010
  • 2005 - RIPS reorganized as ‘PSI(Police Science Institute)
  • 2011 - Affiliated to INTERPA
  • 2013 - Affiliated to KCUE(Korean Council for University Education)
  • 2013 - Asan campus construction initiated
  • 2014 - An alumnus firstly appointed as Commissioner General
  • 2015 - Entrance quota reduced from 120 to 100 & Inclusive admission for disadvantaged initiated