The Zimbabwe Republic Police Staff College was established in 1981 in terms of the Police Act, Chapter 98. This was as a result, inter alia, of a home study report of 1976 which assessed the possibility of running a Police Certificate or Diploma in Police Science in conjunction with a correspondence college. Arrangements were made for it to be housed at structures constructed in Morris Depot (now Mkushi Academy), Harare. The structures were constructed as temporary facility in October 1980 and completed in December of that year.
Assistant Commissioner Roche was appointed the first Principal of the College in 1980. To date, twenty-eight Principals have run the College and Commissioner Dr E. Tshuma is the current Principal.
Since its inception, the Police Staff College has been running various courses relevant to Police work. This has been done with the assistance of outside personnel from such Organizations as the Zimbabwe National Army, Attorney General’s Office, Institute of Personnel Management of Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Institute of Public Administration and Management, the University of Zimbabwe, Bindura University of Science Education (BUSE) and many others.
Over the years, the College has seen vast improvements in the quality of courses, graduands and the calibre of trainers. In 1996 the college was granted associateship status by the University of Zimbabwe for two programmes namely Diploma in Adult Education and Diploma in Adult Education (Police Studies). The Diploma in Adult Education was reviewed in 2010 to infuse HIV AIDS education component in Gender Studies as well as introducing Management Information System as an additional course to make them eight courses plus research project for the programme.
The Diploma in Adult Education (Police Studies) programme was divided into two parts namely Lower Law and Higher Law offered in collaboration with the Judicial College up to 2006 and its duration was two years. In 2006, the programme was restructured to one-year programme and the bulky of the courses were law courses.
The programme was moved to the Faculty of Law in 2013 after serious considerations since the majority of the courses were law courses. Following suggestions by University of Zimbabwe in November 2014, additional courses, Jurisprudence and Constitutional Law were incorporated into the programme and the name of the programme was changed from Diploma in Adult Education (Police Studies) to Diploma in Law on the 1st of January 2015. The new programme now comprise 10 courses and a research project.
In 1998, Certificate, Diploma and Higher Diploma in Business Management programmes were introduced to cater for the development of senior managers in the Zimbabwe Republic Police. In 2006 the college was transferred from Department of Adult Education to the Graduate School of Management under the Faculty of Commerce. Following further reviews, the programme was restructured to align with other University of Zimbabwe programmes. Thus, on the 1st January 2013 the programme was restructured to a two-year programme with academic semesters under the new name Diploma in Business Management Studies. The development was done in tandem with the current market demands.
In the long run, the college envisions to morph into a fully-fledged Police University that offers various programmes to law enforcement agencies and the general public, locally, regionally and internationally.