Presbyterian College of Education, Akropong

Last updated
Presbyterian College of Education, Akropong
Presbyterian College of Education Akropong.jpg
Location
Presbyterian College of Education, Akropong
P. O. Box 27, Akropong-Akuapem

Eastern Region

Akropong
,
E20004

Ghana
Coordinates 5°58′50″N0°05′26″W / 5.98050°N 0.09046°W / 5.98050; -0.09046
Information
Former names
  • Basel Mission Seminary, Akropong
  • Scottish Mission Teacher Training College
  • Presbyterian Training College, Akropong
Type Co-educational Teacher-training College
Religious affiliation(s) Reformed Protestant
Denomination Presbyterian
Established3 July 1848;175 years ago (1848-07-03)
Founder Basel Mission
School districtAkwapim North Municipality
Oversight Ghana Education Service
PrincipalDr. Nicholas Apreh Siaw
Campus type Residential suburban setting

The Presbyterian College of Education, Akropong, is a co-educational teacher-training college in Akropong in the Akwapim North district of the Eastern Region of Ghana. [1] [2] It has gone through a series of previous names, including the Presbyterian Training College, the Scottish Mission Teacher Training College, and the Basel Mission Seminary. [3] The college is accredited by the National Accreditation Board of the Ministry of Education, Ghana as a Degree Research Institution affiliated to the University of Education, Winneba. [4]

Contents

History

The first institution of higher education in Ghana, it was founded by the Basel Mission as the Basel Mission Seminary on 3 July 1848 and fondly referred to as the ‘Mother of Our Schools’. [5] The college was the first institution of higher learning to be established to train teacher-catechists for the eventual Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast. [6] [7] The college is the second oldest higher educational institution in early modern West Africa after Sierra Leone’s Fourah Bay College, founded in 1827. [6] For more than 50 years, it remained the only teacher training institution in the then Gold Coast. It is affiliated to the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. [6] [8] [9] [10] The idea to establish the college was motivated by the ideals of 18th century Württemberg Pietism inspired by German theologians Philipp Spener and August Hermann Francke. [6] The Basel Missionaries who originated mainly from Switzerland and Germany established the college. [5] In the course of the one hundred and sixty years of its existence, the college has run different academic programmes and different curricula have been followed, all tailored to suit the demands of the various times.

These ideals emphasised a combination of spirituality with transformation of life through the practicality of Christian teachings. [6] This feature distinguished the Basel Mission from Anglican and Methodist missionary societies such as the Church Missionary Society, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and the Wesleyan Methodist Mission Society which were more doctrinal in their approach to evangelism. [6]

Starting with an enrollment figure of 5 students in 1848, the college now has a student population of 1,268. The Presbyterian College of Education launched its 160th anniversary in July 2008. The college has the tradition of celebrating renowned achievements on milestone occasions: Thousands of highly skilled and exceptionally disciplined educationists have passed out of the college, and have contributed immensely to the development of Ghana not only as teachers, but also as economists, politicians, lawyers, bankers, industrialists, journalists and clergymen. The college contributed to the staffing of the University of Ghana when it was established in 1948. Over eighty percent of the Moderators of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana and the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (including the present E.P. Moderator) were trained at P.T.C. [5]

The first principal of the college was the Basel missionary, the Rev. Johannes Christian Dieterle. [11] A similar teacher-catechist seminary at Christiansborg, started by the German missionary and philologist, Johannes Zimmermann in 1852, was eventually merged into the Akropong college years later in 1856 to become a single entity. [12] [11] In 1864, the Basel missionary and builder, Fritz Ramseyer, who became a captive of the Asante between 1869 and 1874 and pioneered mission work in the Ashanti territories, arrived on the Gold Coast for the first time to assist the mission in its structural work, completing the construction of the seminary buildings at Akropong. [13] [14] [15]

According to the British historian of missions, Andrew Walls, the catechist-teacher education model adopted by the Basel Mission, was an innovation of the Church Missionary Society pioneered by the Anglican vicar, Henry Venn "as a sort of lower, unordained missionary" - "a subaltern role to facilitate the spread of the Gospel." [7] The original curriculum included a five-year course in the methods in pedagogy, education, theology and Christian catechism. In popular culture, the school is dubbed, the Mother of our Schools. [6] It was the only teacher-training college on the Gold Coast for more than half-a-century producing educators for the needs of the community and the Presbyterian Church. [8] [9] [10] The college now offers diplomas and degrees in education, pedagogy and related subjects. The college participated in the DFID-funded Transforming Teacher Education and Learning programme, Ghana (T-TEL) programme. [16] [17] It is one of the about 40 public colleges of education in Ghana. [16] [18]

Today

The Centenary Chapel at Presbyterian College of Education Akropong The Centenary Chapel at Presbyterian College of Education Akropong.jpg
The Centenary Chapel at Presbyterian College of Education Akropong

It is now a fully-fledged public institution with the Ghana Education Service system under the auspices of the Government of Ghana. Initially, the plan was to upgrade the college to a university but that idea was abandoned after the church founded the Presbyterian University College in 1998. [6] [8] [9] [10]

The curriculum now includes general education requirements tailored to the demands of a developing country. The school was established five years after the Basel Mission started the country's first primary school in 1843. The Basel Mission, and later the Presbyterian Church of Ghana also led pioneering efforts in establishing hundreds of primary and secondary schools and teacher-training colleges. [6] [8] [9] [10]

Education

The college started with a five-year teacher's certificate course and later run programmes which included the Cert ‘A’ 4-year course, 2-year Cert ‘B’ the 2-year Post ‘B’, 2-year Post-Secondary, 3-year Post Secondary and 2-year Specialist course in Science, Agriculture and Special Education, The college runs a three-year Diploma in Basic Education programme which started in 2004. It is among the fifteen Science designated colleges in the country.

The Presbyterian College of Education has several programmes [19]

Programmes offered

  1. Vocational & Technical Skills
  2. Languages
  3. Science
  4. Education Studies
  5. Mathematics & ICT
  6. Social Sciences
  7. Communication skills

List of Principals

No.PeriodName
11848 – 1851The Rev. Johann Christian Dieterle
21852 – 1857The Rev. Johann Georg Widmann
31868 – 1877The Rev. Johann Adam Mader
41878 – 1888The Rev. Johannes Mueller
51889 – 1890The Rev. David Eisenschmidt
61891 – 1905The Rev. Bahasar Groh
71906 – 1909The Rev. Wilhelm Jakob Rottmann
81909 – 1911The Rev. Immanuel Bellon
91912 – 1917The Rev. Dr. Gustav Jehle
101920 – 1926The Rev. William G. Murray
111926 – 1937The Rev. William Ferguson
121937 – 1947Mr. Douglas Benzies
131949 – 1957The Rev. J. S. Malloch
141958 – 1962The Rev. Dr. J. Noel Smith
151963 – 1965The Rev. E. A. Asamoa
161965 – 1971The Rev. H. T. Dako
171971 – 1974The Rev. L. S. G. Agyemfra
181973 – 1978The Rev. S. K. Aboa
191979 – 1987The Rev. S. A. Ofosuhene
201987 – 1993Mr. Ofori Boahene
211994 – 1996The Rev. K. Agyin-Birikorang
221997 – 1999The Rev. S. K. Mensah
231999 – 2010Mr. Emmanuel Kingsley Osei

Notable faculty and staff

Notable alumni

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carl Christian Reindorf</span> Ghanaian pastor and historian

Carl Christian Reindorf was a Euro-African-born pioneer historian, teacher, farmer, trader, physician and pastor who worked with the Basel Mission on the Gold Coast. He wrote The History of the Gold Coast and Asante in the Ga language; scholars consider the book a “culturally important” work and an increasingly important source for Ghanaian history. The work was later translated into English and published in 1895 in Switzerland. He used written sources and oral tradition, interviewing more than 200 people in the course of assembling his history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Presbyterian Church of Ghana</span> Protestant denomination in Ghana

The Presbyterian Church of Ghana is a mainline Protestant church denomination in Ghana. The oldest, continuously existing, established Christian Church in Ghana, it was started by the Basel missionaries on 18 December 1828. The missionaries had been trained in Germany and Switzerland and arrived on the Gold Coast to spread Christianity. The work of the mission became stronger when Moravian missionaries from the West Indies arrived in the country in 1843. In 1848, the Basel Mission Church set up a seminary, now named the Presbyterian College of Education, Akropong, for the training of church workers to help in the missionary work. The Ga and Twi languages were added as part of the doctrinal text used in the training of the seminarians. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Presbyterian church had its missions concentrated in the southeastern parts of the Gold Coast and the peri-urban Akan hinterland. By the mid-20th century, the church had expanded and founded churches among the Asante people who lived in the middle belt of Ghana as well as the northern territories by the 1940s. The Basel missionaries left the Gold Coast during the First World War in 1917. The work of the Presbyterian church was continued by missionaries from the Church of Scotland, the mother church of the worldwide orthodox or mainstream Presbyterian denomination. The official newspaper of the church is the Christian Messenger, established by the Basel Mission in 1883. The denomination's Presbyterian sister church is the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Ghana.

Presbyterian Women's College of Education formerly Aburi Women's Teacher Training College is an all-female college of education, Aburi in the Eastern Region Ghana. The college was established by the Basel missionaries in 1928. The school's first principal was Ms. Elsie McKillican. The school started with two pioneer students.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexander Worthy Clerk</span> Jamaican Moravian educator and missionary

Alexander Worthy Clerk was a Jamaican Moravian pioneer missionary, teacher and clergyman who arrived in 1843 in the Danish Protectorate of Christiansborg, now Osu in Accra, Ghana, then known as the Gold Coast. He was part of the first group of 24 West Indian missionaries from Jamaica and Antigua who worked under the aegis of the Basel Evangelical Missionary Society of Switzerland. Caribbean missionary activity in Africa fit into the broader "Atlantic Missionary Movement" of the diaspora between the 1780s and the 1920s. Shortly after his arrival in Ghana, the mission appointed Clerk as the first Deacon of the Christ Presbyterian Church, Akropong, founded by the first Basel missionary survivor on the Gold Coast, Andreas Riis in 1835, as the organisation's first Protestant church in the country. Alexander Clerk is widely acknowledged and regarded as one of the pioneers of the precursor to the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. As a leader in education in colonial Ghana, he designed curriculum and pedagogy, co-establishing with fellow educators, George Peter Thompson and Catherine Mulgrave, an all-male boarding middle school, the Salem School at Osu in 1843. In 1848, Clerk was an inaugural faculty member at the Basel Mission Seminary, Akropong, now known as the Presbyterian College of Education, where he was an instructor in Biblical studies. The Basel missionaries founded the Akropong seminary and normal school to train teacher-catechists in service of the mission. The college is the second oldest higher educational institution in early modern West Africa after Fourah Bay College in Freetown, Sierra Leone which was established in 1827. Clerk was the father of Nicholas Timothy Clerk, a Basel-trained theologian, who was elected the first Synod Clerk of the Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast from 1918 to 1932 and co-founded the all boys' boarding high school, the Presbyterian Boys' Secondary School established in 1938. A. W. Clerk was also the progenitor of the historically important Clerk family from the suburb of Osu in Accra.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nicholas Timothy Clerk</span> Gold Coast theologian, minister and missionary (1862 –1961)

Nicholas Timothy Clerk was a Protestant theologian, clergyman and pioneering missionary of the Basel Evangelical Missionary Society in southeast colonial Ghana. His father was the Jamaican Moravian missionary Alexander Worthy Clerk, who worked extensively on the Gold Coast with the Basel Mission and co-founded in 1843 the Salem School, a Presbyterian boarding middle school for boys. Born on the Gold Coast, N. T. Clerk was elected the first Synod Clerk of the Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast, in effect, the chief ecclesiastical officer, equivalent to the chief administrator and overall strategy lead of the national church organisation, a position he held from 1918 to 1932. A staunch advocate of secondary education, Nicholas Timothy Clerk became a founding father of the all-boys Presbyterian boarding school in Ghana, the Presbyterian Boys' Secondary School, established in 1938. As Synod Clerk, he pushed vigorously for and was instrumental in turning the original idea of a church mission high school into reality.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carl Henry Clerk</span> Ghanaian educator, minister, administrator and journalist(1895 – 1982)

Carl Henry Clerk was a Ghanaian agricultural educationist, administrator, journalist, editor and church minister who was elected the fourth Synod Clerk of the Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast, assuming the role of chief ecclesial officer of the national church from 1950 to 1954. Between 1960 and 1963, he was also the Editor of the Christian Messenger, established by the Basel Mission in 1883, as the newspaper of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gottlieb Ababio Adom</span> Ghanaian educator, minister and journalist

Gottlieb Ababio Adom was a Ghanaian educator, journalist, editor and Presbyterian minister who served as the Editor of the Christian Messenger from 1966 to 1970. The Christian Messenger, established in 1883 by the Basel Mission, is the primary newspaper of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nicholas T. Clerk</span> Ghanaian academic, administrator and minister (1930–2012)

Nicholas Timothy Clerk was a Ghanaian academic, administrator and Presbyterian minister who served as the Rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) from 1977 to 1982. He was also the vice-chairman of the Public Services Commission of Ghana. Clerk chaired the Public Services Commission of Uganda from 1989 to 1990.

The Salem School, Osu, or the Osu Presbyterian Boys’ Boarding School or simply, Osu Salem, formerly known as the Basel Mission Middle School, is an all boys’ residential middle or junior secondary school located in the suburb of Osu in Accra, Ghana. The Salem School was the first middle school and the first boarding school to be established in Ghana. The school was founded under the auspices of the Basel Mission in 1843 and supervised by three pioneering missionaries and schoolmasters, Jamaican, Alexander Worthy Clerk and Angolan-born Jamaican Catherine Mulgrave together with the German-trained Americo-Liberian George Peter Thompson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ebenezer Presbyterian Church, Osu</span> Presbyterian church in Accra, Ghana

The Ebenezer Presbyterian Church, formerly known as the Basel Mission Church, Christiansborg, is a historic Protestant church located in the suburb of Osu in Accra, Ghana. The church was founded by the Basel Evangelical Missionary Society in 1847. Previously near the Christiansborg Castle at a hamlet called Osu Amanfong, where a commemorative monument now stands, the church relocated northwards to its present location near the Salem School when a new chapel was constructed and consecrated in 1902. The church is affiliated to the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. Liturgical services are conducted in English and the Ga language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jane E. Clerk</span> Gold Coast educator (1904–1999)

Jane Elizabeth Clerk was a Gold Coast schoolteacher and a public education administrator. During the colonial era, she was among an early generation of pioneer women educators who eventually became principals of major government schools. In that period, Jane Clerk was the Headmistress of the Government Girls’ Middle School in Kumasi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Johann Gottlieb Christaller</span> German missionary and linguist

Johann Gottlieb Christaller was a German missionary, clergyman, ethnolinguist, translator and philologist who served with the Basel Mission. He was devoted to the study of the Twi language in what was then the Gold Coast, now Ghana. He was instrumental, together with African colleagues, Akan linguists, David Asante, Theophilus Opoku, Jonathan Palmer Bekoe, and Paul Keteku in the translation of the Bible into the Akuapem dialect of Twi. Christaller was also the first editor of the Christian Messenger, the official news publication of the Basel Mission, serving from 1883 to 1895. He is recognised in some circles as the "founder of scientific linguistic research in West Africa".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christ Presbyterian Church, Akropong</span> Presbyterian church in Akropong-Akuapem, Ghana

The Christ Presbyterian Church, formerly known as the Basel Mission Church, Akropong, is a historic Protestant church located in Akropong–Akuapem, Ghana. It is the first Presbyterian Church to be established in Ghana. It was founded in 1835 by Andreas Riis, a Danish minister and missionary of the Basel Mission who was the only congregant at the time. After years of dormancy, the church began to flourish after the arrival of the Moravian missionaries from the West Indies in 1843. The Basel missionary, Johann Georg Widmann was appointed the minister-in-charge of the Akropong church in 1845. The Jamaican missionary, John Hall, who had served as an elder in his home church in Irwin Hill, Montego Bay, became the first Presbyter of the church while Alexander Worthy Clerk became the first Deacon. Liturgical services are conducted in English and the Twi language.

Clement Anderson Akrofi was an ethnolinguist, translator and philologist who worked extensively on the structure of the Twi language under the aegis of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Asante</span> Gold Coast linguist, educator and missionary

David Asante was a philologist, linguist, translator and the first Akan native missionary of the Basel Evangelical Missionary Society. He was the second African to be educated in Europe by the Basel Mission after the Americo-Liberian pastor, George Peter Thompson. Asante worked closely with the German missionary and philologist, Johann Gottlieb Christaller and fellow native linguists, Theophilus Opoku, Jonathan Palmer Bekoe, and Paul Staudt Keteku in the translation of the Bible into the Twi language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Theophilus Opoku</span> Gold Coast linguist, educator and missionary

Theophilus Herman Kofi Opoku was a native Akan linguist, translator, philologist, educator and missionary who became the first indigenous African to be ordained a pastor on Gold Coast soil by the Basel Mission in 1872. Opoku worked closely with the German missionary and philologist Johann Gottlieb Christaller as well as fellow native Akan linguists, David Asante, Jonathan Palmer Bekoe, and Paul Staudt Keteku in the translation of the Bible into the Twi language.

Rose Ann Miller was a Jamaican-born educator pioneer who worked extensively on the Gold Coast in both Basel Mission and government-run schools. As a child in 1843, Miller relocated to the Gold Coast with her parents and siblings, as part of a group of 24 West Indian settlers recruited by the Danish minister, Andreas Riis and the Basel Mission to augment evangelism efforts in Ghana.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Hall (minister)</span> Gold Coast educator, missionary and minister (1851–1937)

Peter Hall was a Gold Coast-born Jamaican teacher, missionary and Presbyterian clergyman who was elected the first Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast, equivalent to the rank of chairperson of the synod or chief executive of the national church organisation, a position he held from 1918 to 1922. Hall was the son of John Hall, one of 24 West Indian missionaries who arrived in the Danish Protectorate of Christiansborg and worked under the auspices of the Basel Evangelical Missionary Society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ramseyer Memorial Presbyterian Church</span> Presbyterian Church in Kumasi, Ghana

The Ramseyer Memorial Presbyterian Church, originally named the Basel Mission Church, Kumasi and later the Ebenezer Presbyterian Church, is a historic Protestant church located in the suburb of Adum in Kumasi, the capital of the Ashanti Region of Ghana. The church is affiliated to the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. It was founded in 1896 by Fritz Ramseyer, a Swiss-born Basel missionary who was captured by the Asante in 1869. The stone church house was built by the early Basel missionaries led by the technical staff member and building technologist, Fritz Ramseyer as well as the missionary-architect, Karl Epting in 1907. Liturgy is conducted in English and the Asante Twi language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fritz Ramseyer</span> Swiss missionary and builder

Friedrich Augustus Louis Ramseyer also Fritz Ramseyer was a Swiss-born Basel missionary, who was captured by the Asante in 1869 in colonial Ghana, together with his wife Rosa Louise Ramseyer, Basel mission technical staff, Johannes Kühne and French trader, Marie-Joseph Bonnat. Ramseyer was later released in 1874 and pioneered the Christian mission in Kumasi and the rest of Asante. Additionally, he spearheaded the planting of churches in Abetifi. Apart from his evangelism, Ramseyer was instrumental in the expansion of opportunities in the fields of education, artisan industry training, land acquisition for building design and manpower development in the areas he lived and worked in.

References

  1. ↑ Robert, Kumi (2021-12-02). "Presbyterian College Of Education 2022/2023" . Retrieved 2023-09-04.
  2. ↑ Series (2023-05-25). "Presbyterian Training College" . Retrieved 2023-09-04.
  3. ↑ Robert, Kumi (2021-12-02). "Presbyterian College Of Education 2022/2023" . Retrieved 2023-09-04.
  4. ↑ "Presbyterian College of Education (Akropong Akuapem) - T-TEL". t-tel. Retrieved 2019-07-06.
  5. 1 2 3 "Learning Hub - T-TEL". t-tel. Archived from the original on 2019-07-22. Retrieved 2019-07-25.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 "Presby - PTC COLLEGE OF EDUCATION". Presby. Archived from the original on 2018-06-05. Retrieved 2018-06-05.
  7. 1 2 Kwakye, Abraham Nana Opare (2018). "Returning African Christians in Mission to the Gold Coast". Studies in World Christianity. Edinburgh University Press. 24 (1): 25–45. doi:10.3366/swc.2018.0203.
  8. 1 2 3 4 "Presby College of Education gets new Principal". Modern Ghana. Archived from the original on 2017-11-25. Retrieved 2017-11-25.
  9. 1 2 3 4 "About PUCG | Presbyterian University College, Ghana". presby university ghana. Archived from the original on 2017-04-14. Retrieved 2017-11-25.
  10. 1 2 3 4 "Presbyterian College of Education (Akropong Akuapem) - T-TEL". t-tel. Archived from the original on 2015-12-25. Retrieved 2017-11-25.
  11. 1 2 "The Basel Mission bi-centenary celebration (1815 - 2015):…Origin, Heritage, Birth of Presbyterian Church Of Ghana - The Ghanaian Times". ghanaiantimes. Archived from the original on 2018-06-15. Retrieved 2018-06-15.
  12. ↑ Sill, Ulrike (2010). Encounters in Quest of Christian Womanhood: The Basel Mission in Pre- and Early Colonial Ghana. BRILL. ISBN   978-9004188884. Archived from the original on 2017-03-30.
  13. ↑ Knispel, Martin and Kwakye, Nana Opare (2006). Pioneers of the Faith: Biographical Studies from Ghanaian Church History. Accra: Akuapem Presbytery Press.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  14. ↑ Schweizer, Peter Alexander (2000). Survivors on the Gold Coast: The Basel Missionaries in Colonial Ghana. Smartline Pub. ISBN   9789988600013. Archived from the original on 2018-11-22. Retrieved 2018-10-07.
  15. ↑ Asamoah-Prah, Rexford Kwesi (2011). The Contribution of Ramseyer to the Development of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana in Asante (PDF). Kumasi: Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. p. 56. Archived (PDF) from the original on 13 December 2016. Retrieved 3 October 2018.
  16. 1 2 "Atlas of the Colleges of Education Ghana - Bjoern Hassler's website". bjohas de. Archived from the original on 2018-01-20. Retrieved 2018-05-28.
  17. ↑ "Our network". Transforming Teacher Education and Learning, Ghana. Archived from the original on December 29, 2017. Retrieved December 27, 2017.
  18. ↑ National Accreditation Board, Ghana - Public Colleges of Education Archived 2016-05-22 at the Wayback Machine
  19. ↑ "History". Presby University. Retrieved 2019-07-06.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.