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 WürttembergPietism 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.
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]
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] It is headed and supervised under the leadership of Rev. Dr. Nicholas Apreh Siaw, who is the current principal of the institution.[19]
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 college is now accredited by the National Accreditation Board of the Ministry of Education, Ghana as a Degree Research Institution affiliated to the University of Education Winneba.
The Presbyterian College of Education has several programmes[20]
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, 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
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
^ abKwakye, Abraham Nana Opare (2018). "Returning African Christians in Mission to the Gold Coast". Studies in World Christianity. 24 (1). Edinburgh University Press: 25–45. doi:10.3366/swc.2018.0203.
^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)
