St. James Seminary is a senior high school in Sunyani, the capital of the Bono region of Ghana, founded in 1978 by Most Rev. James Kwadwo Owusu, the late bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sunyani. It is not just a Senior High School, but also a Catholic Minor Seminary which offers a wide range of opportunities for both seminarians and non-Seminarians to make them not only aware of their potentials, but to fulfill them. The school emphasizes moral, spiritual and positive character formation in addition to striving to achieve academic excellence. St. James has been adjudged the best senior high school in Ghana over the past decade having featured consecutively in the list of top ten performing schools in the West African Examinations Council’s Senior School Certificate Exams (WASSCE) over the period. It topped the WASSCE in 2006, 2009 and 2011 and produced the overall best and third best candidates in West Africa in the 2016 exam.
Students of St. James are nicknamed ‘The Saints’ to tout their high moral uprightness and spirituality akin to the characteristics of saints. An alumnus of St. James Seminary Senior High School is openly called “Ɔhotenii” (pl. Ahotefoɔ), the Twi word for a saint.
History
St. James Seminary Senior High School was established in 1978 by the late Bishop of Roman Catholic Diocese of Sunyani Most Rev. James Owusu. In spite of the initial resistance and discouragement from many quarters, St. James Seminary opened as a private school with the admission of 14 students in the first year under the supervision of Monsignor Robert Mensah Abrampah as its first rector. The subsequent rectors would encounter humongous academic and infrastructural challenges in its running to the extent of relying on a few teachers to handle multiple subjects. A story is told of the current Vicar-General of Roman Catholic Diocese of Sunyani; Monsignor Dr. George Kwame Kumi who alone taught physics, chemistry and biology for a number of years. The school also relied on part-time teachers from its current rivals Sunyani Secondary School to provide tuition to students of St. James in the early years.
Help would later come when a former headmaster of St. Peter's Boys Senior High School at Nkwatia-Kwahu, Rev. Fr. Joseph Glatzel (SVD) was transferred to Yamfo to work in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sunyani. Rev. Fr. Glatzel single-handedly funded and supervised the construction of the school's major classroom blocks and its first ever staff bungalow. Some notable teachers who were of great help to the school in its teething years include; Charles Oko Agyeman, Reverend Father John McVoy (became 2nd rector), Rev. Sr. Gerald (Missionary Sisters Servants of the Holy Spirit), the first female teacher, Monsignor John Oppong Baah, Reverend Brother Joe Tsiquaye (Congregation of Holy Cross), among others.
The school trained seminarians through Ghana's old educational system and participated in the West African Examinations Council's General Certificate of Education (GCE) Ordinary Level Exams. Students of St. James continuously produced impeccable results year-in-year-out. However, in 1994, mainly due to the call on the Bishop by the Catholic faithful in the Sunyani Diocese for the establishment of a boys’ school to cater for their sons’ secondary education, the Bishop agreed to open up the seminary to non-seminarians to study alongside seminarians to ensure they all benefit from the high academic and moral discipline in St. James Seminary. The objective was that the future priests, and future laity, Catholics and non-Catholics, would know each other and establish cordial working relationships within and outside the church in the future.
St. James Seminary Secondary School became a government assisted school in 1994. The administration of the school has since been reserved for the church. The co-operation between seminarians and non-seminarians has been remarkably positive.
St. James offers high school-level subjects in General Arts, Business Studies and General Science programmes
Houses
St. Kizito is named after the patron saint of children and the youngest of the Martyrs of Uganda who was burned alive at the age of 13–14. They wear RED jerseys.
St. Charles Lwanga is also named after another one of the Martyrs of Uganda who is now adopted as the patron saint of converts, torture victims and the African Catholic Youth Action. Students of this house wear BLUE jerseys
St. Thomas Aquinas is named after the influential Italian philosopher, theologian, and jurist regarded as the model teacher for would-be priests, foremost proponent natural theology. Aquinas boys wear the GREEN jerseys.