The first class had nineteen students. On 20 July 1931, four young men opened a secondary school in a rented building called Ellen House at Mantse Agbonaa in James Town. Their purpose was simple: to educate boys whose families could not afford the established mission schools. That school is now Accra Academy, one of the best-known secondary schools in Ghana.
The founders
The founders were Kofi George Konuah, Samuel Neils Awuletey, Gottfried Narku Alema and James Akwei Halm-Addo. They were teachers with little money and a strong belief that secondary education should be open to more children in Accra.
Ellen House
The building they used was leased from Ellen Buckle, and it took her name. It was an ordinary house in James Town, not a purpose-built school, and the founders had to make do with limited space and equipment.
Paying in instalments
One of the school’s early innovations was allowing families to pay fees in instalments. It made secondary education possible for families who could not pay a whole term’s fees at once. The policy reflected the founders’ aim, and it helped the school grow.
K.G. Konuah
Kofi George Konuah became the school’s first principal. Accounts describe him travelling across the country to conduct entrance examinations himself, looking for able students wherever they lived.
Moving to Bubuashie
The school later moved from James Town to a much larger site of about 37 acres at Bubuashie, near Kaneshie, where it is today. The move gave it room to expand its classrooms, boarding houses and sports facilities.
Bleoo
The school’s motto is “Bleoo”, Ga for “slowly”, and its students and old boys are known by the word. The school’s old students have included politicians, judges, academics, business leaders and sportsmen, and it has a strong record in national quizzes and sports.
Small beginnings
Writers marking the school’s anniversaries often describe its story as greatness from small beginnings. A school started in a rented house by four teachers became a national institution.
A model for others
Accra Academy was one of several schools founded by Ghanaians in the colonial period to widen access to secondary education, at a time when most places were in mission schools and government institutions such as Achimota. Its founders showed that a school run by local teachers, with no church or government money behind it, could survive and grow. Many private and community schools that followed in Accra copied parts of its approach, especially the idea that fees should be paid in a way that matched what families could afford.
Ghana’s newer debates about free secondary education and access for poor families are not new. In 1931, four teachers in James Town tried to solve the same problem with an instalment plan and a borrowed house.
