About St John Bosco College
College of Choice
St. John Bosco’s Teacher Training College really started in 1930 when it was known as Mary Immaculate Conception Junior Seminary under the supervision of Rev. Fr. Gagnon. Until 1933 the Seminary was occupying a place now known in the Navrongo Mission as Carpentry Shop.
By the middle of 1936 a Senior School that is the present St. Mary Junior High School was attached to the Seminary to meet the great demand of applications most of whom wanted to receive higher education. The following year, a Two-year Teacher Training Course, the first Training College in the then Northern Territories, was also begun alongside the Junior Seminary and the Senior School. The Teacher Training Course was however discontinued partly owing to the uncooperative attitude of the colonial officers in charge of education who did not want the White Fathers to establish such high institutions of learning in the Northern Territories.
In January 1946, there were four institutions of learning in St. John Bosco’s. The Major and Junior Seminaries, The Senior School and the Training College which was opened as a Cert ‘B’ College under principalship of the late Rev. Fr. Chartrand. In June 1946, however, the two Seminaries were removed to Wiaga due to lack of accommodation.
It was after the removal of the two Seminary Institutions that the college was officially known as St. John Bosco’s Teacher Training College. The Senior School was still attached to the College until 1958 when the latter was removed to where it now stands as St. Mary’s Junior High School.
St. John Bosco’s remained a Cert ‘B’ College until 1961 when all the Cert ‘B” Colleges in the country were turned to Cert ‘A’ (4-year) institutions. Nine years later (September 1970) St. John Bosco’s College was again given a new status when it was turned into Post-Secondary Teacher Training College and then three years later (1973) she was raised to the status of a Specialist College of Art Education.Two years later (1975), the Specialist College of Art Education was replaced with a Three Year Post-Secondary Cert ‘A’ Course. The Course Integrated Specialisation in elective subjects. This was the case until 2004/2005 academic year when the College was raised to the status of College of Education where students are to pursue a Three-year Diploma in Basic Education Programme.
Years to come Bosco’s may become a University: Who Knows Tomorrow ?