Wesley Girls' High School

Infobox_School
name = Wesley Girls' High School


imagesize =
caption =
motto = "Live Pure, Speak True, Right Wrong and Follow the King"
established =1836
type =Public Secondary/High School
affiliation =Wesleyan - Methodist Church
district =
grades =
president =
head of school = Mrs Betty Djokoto
dean =
faculty =
staff =68
students =1200
enrollment =
athletics =
conference =
colors =
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campus type =
campus size =
free_label =Address
free_text =P. O. Box 61
Cape Coast, Ghana flagicon|Ghana
free_label2 =Telephone
free_text2 =[phone] [phone]
free_label3 =
free_text3 =
location = Cape Coast, Ghana
information =
website = http://www.weygeyhey.com/

Wesley Girl’s High school, a prestigious educational institution for girls, was named after the founder of Methodism, John Wesley. The school was established in 1836 with 25 girls by the wife of a Methodist Minister. It started as a primary school with the aim of offering girls proper training in reading and writing, sewing and house-keeping and more especially in moral and spiritual development. In spite of its staggered history of collapse and revival, the school survived and graduated into a secondary institution. From such humble beginnings, the school is now one of the leading schools in the country and definitely the best girls’ school in Ghana. Today, "www.africaalmanac.com", ranks the school 68th in Africa. [cite web | title =Africa's Top 100 High Schools | publisher =Africa Almanac | url =http://www.africaalmanac.com/top20highschools.html | accessdate =2007-12-29 ]

In 1954 the school was divided and the current Wesley Girl's High School was born at a separate site in Kakumdo, a site it still occupies.

The Motto of the school is: “Live Pure, Speak True, Right Wrong and Follow the King”, which emphasizes the basic tenets of Christianity. Students of the school are expected to lead morally upright lives, speak the truth all the time and correct the wrongs in society.

Student population in the school is 1,200 with 68 teachers. Twenty-three of these teachers are female, constituting about 34% of the teaching staff. The school has no day students and also no programme/subject specialisation. (Credit: The Fiankoma Project)

Prominent alumnae include playwright Ama Ata Aidoo ^{[http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/women/article.php?ArticleID=8&channel=feature]} , Georgina Theodora Wood (Chief Justice of Ghana), and Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, an educationist.

History

Early History

The records of the Methodist Church show that by the time Rev. George Wrigley and his wife Harriet landed in Cape Coast on 15th September 1836, there already existed a flourishing school for boys and a small one for girls in the Cape Coast castle. Rev. Wrigley however was determined to start another boys school under the auspices of the Methodist Church. His wife started one for girls soon after their arrival. 25 girls were enrolled in the new girls school in September 1836, and classes were held in the Standfast Hall. The aim of the founder, Mrs. Harriet Wrigley, was to teach reading and sewing to the girls of Cape Coast.

Unlike the boys school, started by Rev. Wrigley which did not last long, the girls school survived even though its founder died in February 1837, five months after founding it. Her position was temporarily filled by Mrs. Barr, the wife of a European merchant, until August 1837, when the services of a very efficient school mistress, Miss Elizabeth Waldron, were secured.

From then on, the school began to grow. Miss Elizabeth Waldron was the daughter of an Irishman and a Ghanaian woman, and it is to her that we owe the survival of the school, at a time when white missionaries had very little resistance to malaria and other tropical diseases.

Before taking up the running of the new Methodist school for girls, she was a school mistress in the school at the Castle. Her marriage to Mr. Coleman was not successful, and her only daughter died. She therefore devoted the best part of her life, 1837 to 1880,to building up the school, which was then called "Wesleyan Girls School and Training Home". The aim was still to give the girls basic education with emphasis on domestic science, to prepare the young for marriage to the elite gentry.

During the same period, the Methodist Church felt the need to do for the youth in Accra what it was doing for those in Cape Coast, and a Wesleyan Girls School was started in Accra in the early 1880s.

It must be mentioned here that the memory of the two founding mothers of the school has rightly been honoured by the naming of two Houses at the new site Wrigley and Waldron Houses.

In May 1876, the Wesleyan School,which later became Mfantsipim School, was established, and it appears that the tutors in that school helped in teaching the girls of the Wesleyan girls School and probably in the running of the school as well for the records do not show that the school had a Headmistress of the stature of Miss Waldron after 1880 when Mrs. Ellis a missionary and a trained Deconess, took over the running of the school.

Modern History

In the early 1960s, WGHS was a boarding school run by British co-headmistresses, Miss Garnett and Miss Bowman. Staffing was multiracial, teachers originating from Ghana, the UK, Ireland, Canada, America, Ceylon... probably other countries too. The UK's Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) had an involvement; sending volunteers to help boost staffing, as did the US Peace Corps.

At that time, the school day began around 7.00 am and ended at 2.30 pm. Assembly came first; there was a break for breakfast at 9.00 am. The school uniform was a green tunic with yellow piping - no sleeves of course - and sandals. On Founder's Day (Speech Day), pupils were expected to wear traditional dress.

Currently, the school is headed by Mrs Betty Djokoto, an old girl of the school.

Courses offered at the school are in line with the curriculum of the nation; General Arts, Science, Visual Arts,Vocational Skills and Business. There are over a thousand students currently; between the ages of 15 and 19/20.

The school has been criticized by many parents who send their girls there for being overly strict and for prohibiting last year students from seeing or calling their parents completely during the last term. Muslim students are also forbidden to pray and are forced to enter the school's chapel. On Eid Days they are not allowed to go to the mosque and instead of treating the day as a holiday students are forced to study in their classrooms twice. Students are also not allowed home during the mid terms.

Wesley Girls' High School regularly features in the top 100 list of the most successful secondary schools in Africa.

Wesley Girls' High School is the leading female secondary school in Ghana and recently sewpt the award for the Best Overall Science Student in the 2006 Wassce examinations. As well as the First Overall Best and Second Overall Best students in The WASSCE Examinations in the country.

Recently, they emerged third in the 2008 national Science and Maths Quiz. They were represented by Ewuradjoa Gadzanku, Belinda Aba Afful and Nana Adjoa Ben-Crentsil.

External links

* [http://www.weygeyhey.com/pages/welcome.asp weygeyhey.com]

References