Achimota  Senior High

Achimota  Senior High School

This article was created by zaatu.com

The school was founded in 1927 as the country’s first government co-educational boarding institution. Governor Gordon Guggisberg, a colonial administrator in this country, Reverend A. G. Frazer, the school’s first principal, and Dr. Emman James Kwegyir Aggrey, a Gold Coaster, were the school’s founding fathers.
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In 1920, a year after assuming office as governor of the Gold Coast, Guggisberg expressed his dissatisfaction with the country’s secondary educational system and set out to improve it. He appointed a committee of educationists under the chairmanship of D. J. Oman, the then-director of education, to “investigate educational efforts on the Gold Coast, their success and failure, with reasons for each, and to make recommendations for educational policy.” The committee recommended, among other things, the establishment of a secondary boarding school for boys near Achimota village.
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In 1925 Governor Guggisberg published his 16 principles for the future guidance of Gold Coast education. Intriguingly, nearly all of these principles were implemented concurrently with the construction of Achimota School. Indeed, Guggisberg envisioned it as a “research laboratory for education,” his solution to the country’s educational problems, and the cornerstone of his plan of sweeping reforms.
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Enter Reverend A. G. Frazer, the college’s first principal. Frazer altered Guggisberg’s blueprint in two ways: instead of a boys’ secondary boarding school, the college would become a co-educational institution. Secondly, its educational programme would begin with primary school children rather than secondary pupils. Dr. Emman James Kwegyir Aggrey, the third founder, acted as a diplomat and communicator between the native people and the predominantly European Achimota staff, splitting his time between teaching and traveling throughout the country to spread the vision of a new school founded to offer students a blend of European and African culture and education.
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