The First Decade – Reminiscences
March 1, 1966 – August 31, 1975
The government’s approval to open the Baptist Grammar School, Ibadan, came on January 15,1966, when all other schools in the old Western Region had resumed for the year and so the preliminary arrangements to conduct the entrance examination, buy furniture, arrange for a temporary site and so on were rushed.
The principal designate, Mr. J. A. Popoola, and his clerk/typist were coming down from Iwo Baptist High School, where they were working, for these arrangements and that made things a little bit difficult.
But thanks to the school Planning Committee, which took over parts of the responsibility to buy desks and chairs and to advertise for the entrance examination, which took place in February 1966. The decision to take in boarders was taken late and so we horridly looked for a two storey house at SW8/711, Oke Ade, near the liberty stadium. The house and another one adjacent to it, which was hired in 1968, served as the school’s temporary boarding house from 1966 to 1970.
In the evening of Sunday 28th February 1966, the Principal and his wife and children made the last trip from Iwo Baptist High School to the temporary boarding house at Oke Ado to meet the first set of boarders, 15 boys and 11 girls, and their parents. Some members of the School Planning Committee came to welcome us. It took us some time to settle down that night because the principal had to go round in the night to buy firewood and other materials needed to make a start in the kitchen.
The student’ first supper was “moinmoin” and “eko”and their first breakfast the following day was tea and bread. The boarders’ spirit was high as we made a good start the second day. The Principal who was also the housemaster, his wife who was the headmistress, their children and the cook lived under the same roof with the boarders. It was a large school family and we all enjoined the association and the lively atmosphere.
The governing body was a 15 member Board of Governors consisting of nine members of the Promoters’ Committee.
On the morning of Monday. 1st march 1966, five weeks after the beginning of the first term, the dream of a group of dynamic Nigerian Baptist in Ibadan became a reality when a group of 33 boys and 33 girls and their teachers: Mr. J. A. Popoola (Principal)and Mrs. M. O. Popoola assembled at the Baptist Modern School, Liberty Stadium road, the school’s temporary site to make history as the foundation members of the Baptist Grammar School, Ibadan. Reverend S.A. Makanjuola, of the Union Baptist Church, Ibadan, conducted the first morning devotion.
Thereafter, it was not easy settling down because the classrooms that were lent out by the Authority of the Modern School were not yet vacated and there was no office for the Principal and his clerk. The first assignment of our students was therefore to clean their classrooms and to pack out the Modern School’s property under the supervision of the headmaster, Mr. Fadulu and Mrs. Popoola while the Principal checked the list of students and collected school fees.