BHS History
- THE FORWARD
By: The late Professor Rev. Edward J. Harris,
Sr, Alumnus, Class of 1950 and former Principal
Anyone who looks at the Bassa High School
in its present physical and academic appearances might readily agree that since
1905 when the institution was know as Hatzel Academy, an institution constructed
and operated by the Methodist Episcopal Church Overseas in joint cooperation with
their Liberian counterpart, through the years up to 1926, when a joint agreement
was entered into and signed between the foreign board of said denomination and the
Liberian government for its operation, the institution has made considerable progress.
From March 9, 1926, up to
the end of the 1943 school year, the institution was still known and called Hartzel
Academy. In February, 1944, the Department
of Public Instruction, R.L. now the Ministry of Education, R.L., approved of the
request which was made the previous (1943), by the Faculty of the academy for a
change in the nomenclature (name) of the institution from Hartzel Academy to the
Bassa High School.
That year (1944), the Bassa
High School graduated its first exponent in the person of Mr. Henry Kparkay Weah.
Since 1944, the Bassa High
School has been on an upward thrust, forging ahead despite the mounting difficulties
of the day and age shedding its rays of literacy in every direction of human interest
and concern. The Principal, faculty and Student Body are optimistic that the Bassa
High School will remain a “Tower of Light” (Turris Lucis) thought
the ages to come as the struggle continues for the promotion of quality education
in the New Liberia.
In 1981, a new development
took place when the Ministry of Education, RL merged the Adult Night School formally
known as the Government Night School into the Bassa High School and under its Administration
as “The P.M. Session of the Bassa High School System.”
The Extension Division.