A #DeepLeader lives with nuance, tames tensions and straddles paradoxes.
When people talk about ‘mission schools’ in Ghana they typically do not include my alma mater Achimota School. I guess it’s because Achimota wasn’t started or ran by a religious denomination. Yet as a public school co-founded by the then Gold Coast governor (Gordon Guggisberg), the famous African educationist Dr. Kwegyir Aggrey and a certain Reverend Fraser, the former ‘Prince of Wales College’ (founded in 1927) as the first truly co-ed secondary school–boys and girls mixed–has always had significant Christian missionary aims; not just missional overtures and undertones. Indeed the names of the residential houses are in honour of some (in)famous Western missionaries like David Livingstone and Mary Slessor.
Achimota has seven ideals upon which she was founded. It has fascinated me for years that the seventh ideal could not be more overtly evangelistic: “The belief, on which all else rests, in Jesus Christ as the revelation for all times and all peoples of the love of God, and as the guide and pattern of our lives.”
Part of the current discussion about faith and schools/faith in schools must take cognisance of the largely ‘Christian’ world and worldview of the planet at the time of the founding of schools like Achimota (late 19th and early 20th centuries) compared to the current milieu of secularisation, hyperhumanism and the push for space religions like Islam overtly seek in public arena, especially in the West.
Of all the religions, Christianity and Islam tend to clash the most because both are missionary in nature and claim the totality of human life (spirit, soul and soma) plus seek to influence every sector of the entire society. In light of this, respect for each other and open dialogue between both are key in any pluralistic context that seeks to be sane, safe and far from sedentary.
For those interested in all seven ideals upon which Achimota School is built, here they are:
1. The best use of the minds and bodies which God has given us.
2. An equal opportunity for boys and girls.
3. Respect for all that is true and of lasting value in the old African culture, beliefs and way of life
4. Willing, humble service of the educated for the uneducated.
5. Mutual understanding and cooperation between Christians of all denominations, and the growth of that spirit in which the churches shall one day be united again.
6. Friendship, respect, and cooperation among all races on equal terms.
7. The belief, on which all else rests, in Jesus Christ as the revelation for all times and all peoples of the love of God, and as the guide and pattern of our lives.
If given the opportunity to do it all over again, so-to-speak, I wouldn’t choose another school. Not for all the rice in China; or all the spare parts in Abossey Okai!
Is the publicly-founded and publicly-funded Achimota Secondary School a ‘mission school’ or not? Life and leadership are more nuanced than too many of us care to appreciate.
