St. Thomas Aquinas Senior High School


St. Thomas Aquinas Senior High School is a Ghanaian public day senior high school for boys in the Osu, district of Accra in the Greater Accra Region. The school is currently located in Cantonments, a suburb of Accra. It was established mainly to provide education for boys of the Accra Archdiocese whose parents could not afford the high cost then of sending their male children to boarding schools. It was among five secondary schools established in 1952.

History

The Saint Thomas Aquinas Secondary School was established in the Greater Accra Region by the Catholic missionaries on 15th January 1952 in the present premises of St. Peter's Catholic Church.
The Roman Catholic missionaries were at the vanguard of establishing schools across Ghana to educate boys in the catholic tradition. It was in this direction that the Roman Catholic Bishop of Accra, the Most Rev. Adolph Alexander Noser, started the school in a two-storey house at Osu-Anohor, close to the littoral, with a limited number of fifty students.
The original staff comprised three Society of the Divine Word Reverend Fathers, Father Alphonse Elsbernd, Father George Wilson and Father Fisher, Mr Augustine Adu and Paul Baddoo. In March 1954, Father Clement Hotze took over the reins of administration of the school as Headmaster; with a student population of 130 and staff of 8. Hotze knew that the proper development of the school depended on two main projects, Assistance from the Government and recognition from the West African Examinations Council. He was never tired working on these projects, until his efforts were rewarded in January and April 1957
The school was recognized as government-assisted by the West African Examinations Council to present candidates for the Ordinary Level Examination in 1957, when Rev. Father John McKillip became headmaster. In November 1955, Fr Hotze presented the first candidate for the School Certificate Examination and had a 100% pass rate; one candidate was presented and one candidate passed; and this was a feather in his cap

First batch of enrollment and school-growth timelines

The first batch of students performed well in the West African Senior School Certificate Examination in 1957. In January 1957, Fr. John McKillip took over from Fr. Hotze as headmaster. Aquinas started a second stream. When Fr. Datig came into office in April 1957 he had to rearrange the classroom space to accommodate the growth of the double stream.
Aquinas made great strides in her development during the administration of Fr. Maurice Lesage. The school's headmaster in 1958, Rev. Father Maurice Lessage, a botanist whose love for reptiles led him to keep snakes on the school compound and who ultimately wrote a book entitled Snakes of West Africa, proved very indefatigable in his endeavor to develop the school. Assisted by colleague Catholic priests, Rev. Fathers Joseph Schorupka, Brother Burnes and Brother Kostkhar, the school grew in popularity as student population soared, creating inconveniences and enormous burden on classroom space. As a new and more suitable site was being contemplated, in September 1961, the chiefs of the Ga people finally released a parcel of about 10 hectares of land at Cantonment to serve that purpose. The founding fathers quickly procured the necessary resources coupled with the approval of the Ministry of Education to put up classrooms and science laboratories for the school. In 1968 Fr. Lesage had to resign because of ill health. But this was only after he had ploughed the ground and planted the seed for the future development of Aquinas
Conversant with the difficulties of the school's students securing places in the sixth form grade in other schools, the then-headmaster, Rev. Father John McKillip, applied for instituting sixth form at the school to enable students to partake in the Advanced Level Certificate Examination to fast track their entry to tertiary-institutional levels. This materialized as the Ghananian Ministry of Education gave the approval and establishment in 1971. The teaching staff capacity was strengthened by the American Peace Corps and the British Overseas Volunteer Corps who were specialists in science, mathematics and English literature. As a result, the school attracted children of European and Asian expatriates residing in Accra.
Aquinas made its mark on the Ghanaian educational ladder when in early 1974, a circular from the Headquarters of the Ghana Education Service showing a survey of the percentage of passes at the School Certificate Level of all Government Assisted Schools in Ghana for the 1972 and 1973 academic years showed that Aquinas had the highest percentage of passes in the whole country. In other words, for three consecutive years Aquinas came first in academic excellence.
Mr. D.D. Dumfeh took over from Fr. Mckillip in 1978 but stayed for only two years. He was followed by Mr. C.K. Koomson in 1980. After the experiment of two lay heads, another priest was brought in the person of Fr. Samuel Batsa from Achimota College to head the school. He took over from Mr. Koomson in September 1985.
With the Educational Reform Programme coming into force in 1987 the entire outlook of the school also changed completely, from a four stream school to an eight stream school.
Gradually the number of streams startered increasing since the system was a community-based one. Presently the school has eight streams made up of the following programmes ;
Science/Agric, General/Visual Arts; and Business

Location

In September 1963, the school relocated to its present permanent site at Cantonment Street, Osu.
The school is situated opposite the European Union offices and the Civil Service Training School, laying between the Cantonment Police Station to its south and The Embassy of Togo to its north, with close proximity to the prime area of the commercial and administrative hub of Osu's Oxford Street.

Academics

The school runs nine streams and five academic programmes.

Affiliation

Aquinas has ties with its sister school, Accra Girls Senior High School, with a strong bond of students association, which is aimed at sharing entertainments, social activities, and educational exchange, called STAAGA.

Motto and slogan

The school's motto is Veritas Liberat, meaning "The truth sets you free", is a Latin variant of Veritas vos liberabit from the Gospel of John chapter 8 verse 32.
Its slogan is "beebɛ", a word in Ghana's native Ga language, meaning "There is no time to waste " or “waste no time”.

Uniform

The students wear a white shirt with the school crest christened Veritas Liberat, meaning, "only the truth can set you free", boldly engraved, tucked into a brown Khaki pair of shorts to match. In contemporary times, however, a light-blue shirt for final-year students and the school cloth which is textile, embossed with the school crest, have supplemented the traditional white shirt which was the choice of the founding fathers on Fridays.

Awards

For three consecutive years, 1972, 1973, 1974, the school led West Africa in the Advanced Level Certificate Examination according to statistical figures from the Education Ministry. In 2004, the school won the world cadet championship held in London. In 2013, the school was deemed the Overall Best High School in Ghana. The same year, 2013, the school won the National Science and Maths Quiz Competition.
The school won the National Science and Maths Quiz in 2013. St. Thomas Aquinas SHS is the only exclusively day school to have won the trophy.
In 2013, the school came first in the maiden edition of the Science and Technology Fair organized by the Young Educators Foundation, an education oriented non-governmental organization.
In 2017, the school won the National Science and Technology Fair now sponsored by the government after a four-year hiatus.
In the 2014 West African Senior School Certificate Examination, the school maintained its 100 percent pass rate.
The school won the Moot Court Competition for the first time the program was introduced to the second educational cycle.
The school emerged winners of the 2019 Gender Inequality Debate.

Chronological list of headmasters

Postdated accolades and achievements

By 2012, when the school celebrated its golden jubilee, academic programmes had expanded to include business studies, agricultural sciences and visual arts.
Staff bungalows began to spring up with a headmaster's accommodation, a one-storey block academic staff residence, a hostel facility and a canteen for students, all on campus.

Notable alumni

List of notable alumni

;Academia, politics and religion