Presbyterian College of Education, Akropong

Presbyterian College of Education, Akropong
Location
P. O. Box 27, Akropong-Akuapem
Eastern Region
Akropong, E20004
Ghana
Coordinates 5°58′50″N 0°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
Established 3 July 1848 (1848-07-03)
Founder Basel Mission
School district Akwapim North Municipality
Oversight Ghana Education Service
Principal The Rev. Samuel Yeboah Antwi
Campus type Residential suburban setting

The Presbyterian College of Education, Akropong, is a co-educational teacher-training college in Akropong in the Akwapim district of the Eastern Region of Ghana. 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.

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 to train teacher-catechists for the eventual Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast.[1][2] The college is the second oldest higher educational institution in early modern West Africa after Sierra Leone’s Fourah Bay College, founded in 1827.[1] It is affiliated to the Presbyterian Church of Ghana.[1][3][4][5] The idea to establish the college was motivated by the ideals of 18th century Württemberg Pietism inspired by German theologians Philipp Spenern and August Hermann Francke.[1] These ideals emphasised a combination of spirituality with transformation of life through the practicality of Christian teachings.[1] 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.[1]

The first principal of the college was the Basel missionary, the Rev. Johannes Christian Dieterle.[6] 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.[7][6] In 1864, the Basel missionary and builder, Fritz Ramseyer, who became a captive of the Asante from 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.[8][9][10]

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." [2] 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.[1] 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.[3][4][5] 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.[11][12] It is one of the about 40 public colleges of education in Ghana.[11][13]

Today

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.[1][3][4][5]

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.[1][3][4][5]

Notable faculty and staff

Notable alumni

  • Gottlieb Ababio Adom - Gold Coast educator, journalist, editor and Presbyterian minister
  • Clement Anderson Akrofi - Gold Coast ethnolinguist, translator and philologist who worked extensively on the structure of the Twi language
  • Ofori Atta I- Okyenhene or King of Akyem Abuakwa, 1912 – 1943
  • David Asante - first native missionary of the Basel Mission and philologist; instructor in language
  • Christian Gonçalves Kwami Baëta - Gold Coast academic and Presbyterian minister and Synod Clerk, Evangelical Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast, 1945 – 1949, who was instrumental in the establishment of the University of Ghana, Legon in 1948
  • Carl Henry Clerk - Gold Coast educator, administrator, journalist, editor and Presbyterian minister, fourth Synod Clerk, Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast, 1950 – 1954
  • Nicholas T. Clerk - Ghanaian academic, public administrator and Presbyterian minister
  • Nicholas Timothy Clerk - Gold Coast-born Basel missionary and theologian, first Synod Clerk, Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast, 1918 –1932
  • Peter Hall - Gold Coast-born Jamaican educator, clergyman, missionary and first Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast, 1918 –1922
  • Nii Amaa Ollennu - jurist, judge, Justice of the Supreme Court of Ghana, Speaker of the Parliament of Ghana in the Second Republic and acting President of Ghana from 7 August 1970 to 31 August 1970
  • Theophilus Opoku - 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
  • Emmanuel Charles Quist - barrister, judge and the first African President of the Legislative Council and first Speaker of the Parliament of Ghana

See also

References

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "About PUCG | Presbyterian University College, Ghana". www.presbyuniversity.edu.gh. Archived from the original on 2017-04-14. Retrieved 2017-11-25.
  5. 1 2 3 4 "Presbyterian College of Education (Akropong Akuapem) - T-TEL". www.t-tel.org. Archived from the original on 2015-12-25. Retrieved 2017-11-25.
  6. 1 2 "The Basel Mission bi-centenary celebration (1815 - 2015):…Origin, Heritage, Birth of Presbyterian Church Of Ghana - The Ghanaian Times". www.ghanaiantimes.com.gh. Archived from the original on 2018-06-15. Retrieved 2018-06-15.
  7. ↑ Sill, Ulrike (2010). Encounters in Quest of Christian Womanhood: The Basel Mission in Pre- and Early Colonial Ghana. BRILL. ISBN 9004188886. Archived from the original on 2017-03-30.
  8. ↑ Knispel, Martin and Kwakye, Nana Opare (2006). Pioneers of the Faith: Biographical Studies from Ghanaian Church History. Accra: Akuapem Presbytery Press.
  9. ↑ Schweizer, Peter Alexander (2000). Survivors on the Gold Coast: The Basel Missionaries in Colonial Ghana. Smartline Pub. ISBN 9789988600013.
  10. ↑ 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.
  11. 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.
  12. ↑ "Our network". Transforming Teacher Education and Learning, Ghana. Archived from the original on December 29, 2017. Retrieved December 27, 2017.
  13. ↑ National Accreditation Board, Ghana - Public Colleges of Education Archived 2016-05-22 at the Wayback Machine.
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