Classroom Teachers Who Became Presidents of Ghana

Did you know that some of Ghana’s presidents were once classroom teachers? Some were teachers before venturing into politics. Let’s take a look at classroom teachers who became presidents of Ghana.

1. Dr. Kwame Nkrumah

Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, was once a teacher. In 1925, he was a student-teacher in a Catholic Mission school at Half Assini, which is run by a Catholic mission. While at the school, he was noticed by Reverend Alec Garden Fraser, principal of the Government Training College (now Achimota School).

After obtaining his teacher’s certificate from the Prince of Wales’ College at Achimota in 1930, Nkrumah was given a teaching post at the Roman Catholic primary school in Elmina in 1931, and after a year there, was made headmaster of the school at Axim. In Axim, he started to get involved in politics and founded the Nzima Literary Society. In 1933, he was appointed a teacher at the Catholic seminary at Amissano.

The young teacher decided to further his education. Azikiwe had attended Lincoln University, a historically black college in Chester County, Pennsylvania, west of Philadelphia, and he advised Nkrumah to enroll there.

2. Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia

Busia taught at Wesley College and left to study at Achimota College in 1935 and taught there. Busia served as a district commissioner from 1942 to 1949 and was appointed the first lecturer in African Studies. He became the first African to occupy a chair at the University of Ghana.

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3. John Evans Fiifi Atta Mills

Atta Mills’ first formal teaching assignment was as a lecturer at the Faculty of Law at the University of Ghana. He spent close to twenty-five years teaching at Legon and other institutions of higher learning.

He became a visiting professor at Temple University (Philadelphia, USA), with two stints from 1978 to 1979 and 1986 to 1987. He was also a visiting lecturer at Leiden University in the Netherlands from 1985 to 1986. During this period, he authored several publications relating to taxation in the 1970s and 1980s.

4. John Mahama

After completing his undergraduate education, Mahama taught history at the secondary school level for a few years.

5. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo

Akufo-Addo was in New College in Oxford studying Politics and Economics in 1962. He returned to Ghana in the same year to teach at the Accra Academy before going to read economics at the University of Ghana, Legon, in 1964, earning a BSc (Econ) degree in 1967.

6. Ignatius Kutu Acheampong

Acheampong worked as a stenographer/secretary at Timber Sawmill in Kumasi and later taught at Kumasi Commercial College, where he became Vice Principal at Agona-Swedru College of Commerce.