The first Cadet Corps in Ghana Was established on Wednesday, September 1954, at the Ghana Secondary Technical School (GSTS) Takoradi in the Western Region. The aim of the establishment of the Cadet Corps in Schools was to instill discipline and loyalty among students and develop the interest of young people to join the Gold Coast Frontier Force which later became the Ghana Army and now Ghana Armed Forces. It was a very vibrant disciplined body in the schools and all parents desired their wards to be members.
Some years later, other schools with the help of the Ghana Armed Forces established Cadet Corps to help reduce the level of indiscipline (vandalizing school property) at the least provocation among the students in school.
The Ghana Army realizing the importance of the youth in schools and the role they could play to support the military and the Nation, quickly assisted in its formation and building of basic facilities in the Secondary Schools. The foremost secondary schools were:
- Tamale Secondary School – Northern Region
- Achimota School – Greater Accra Region
- Accra Academy – Greater Accra Region
- Opoku Ware SHS – Ashanti Region
- Prempeh College – Ashanti Region
- Adisadel College – Central Region
- Augustines College – Central Region
- Mfantsipim School – Central Region
- Wesley Girls SHS (Cape Coast) – Central Region
- St Paul’s SHS Denu – Volta Region
- Mawuli School – Volta Region
- Navrongo SHS – Upper East Region
In the year 1967, the Ghana Navy realizing the good impacts of the Army Cadet Corps, inaugurated the first Naval Cadet Corps at St. Paul’s Secondary and Minor Seminary School Denu in the Volta Region and subsequently spread to other schools across the country.
During the 1995 Ghana Air Force Wings Parade, which was reviewed by then-President H. E. Jerry John Rawlings, the Air Force also opened three school cadets: St. Anthony’s Preparatory and JHS of the Greater Accra Region, Wesley Girls High School in the Central Region, and Nsien Senior High School in the Western Region. Incidentally, the Commander was his daughter, Dr. Zenator Agyeman Rawlings, who is currently serving as a member of parliament for Korle Klottey constituency as of 2016. Later, this made its way throughout all of the nation’s schools.
The Ghana Armed Forces realizing the importance and youthful exuberant of the youth decided to invest by providing them with logistics and training to be more disciplined whiles in school so they may not become a problem when they complete school and are waiting to be integrated in the working class. The sole responsibility of the Ghana Armed Forces was to provide all accruement and basic training for the school cadet while in school.
In 1994 a team of cadet officers led by Cadet Captain Ofuste. Kodjoe. Wayo (a.k.a.) Nene Kodjoe, of Accra Academy met with some other leaders of the Cadet Corps like Zenator Agyeman Rawlings of the Wesley Girls High School to form a united front of the Cadet Corps known as “Combined Cadet Force Central Command”. This was to bring together all cadet corps to have a uniformed front for a positive development of the society.
The plan was to eventually open the organization up to cadets representing other security services while replacing the demand for active-duty instructors with retirees who worked for and were cost shared by the schools.
The founders considered the Cadet fraternity as a disciplined youth organization in Ghana that would be sponsored by the Ministry of Defense (MOD), operating in schools, with operational directives coming from the Army, Navy and Air Force units. Its goal was to “provide a disciplined organization in schools so that students may develop powers of leadership by means of training to promote the qualities of responsibility, self-reliance, resourcefulness, endurance and perseverance”.
Overall, the founders insisted that the study of drill, ethics, citizenship, communication, leadership, life skills and other subjects designed to prepare young men and women to take their place in adult society, should evolve as the core mandate of the National Cadet Headquarters. The Armed Forces in its regulation volume 1 recognize the school cadet corps in its corps operations.
Various social activities such as, cleanup, tree planting, camping and conferences was organized. This yielded a few results because the officers had completed secondary education and had no official reference point in education and did not have any national recognition all though the foundation was laid.
From 1998 to 1999, a team of officers led by Cadet Nicholas Nii Tettey-Amarteifio of St Johns Grammar School with support from the cadet leadership of Achimota School (the late WO1 Nicholas Agbo then PSI of Achimota Cadet Corps), Cadet Derek Clottey, Rev. Joseph Atiomo, Cadet Issah Bawa all of Accra Academy, decided to rekindle the activities of cadet corps in the country and had support from Government to see how best the concept of uniting the cadet corps could be of help in the development of the youth and reduce the rate of demonstration and vandalism in our schools.
The name then changed to Combined Cadet Force which had its patrons as Mrs. Asana Mahama 1998 -2000 and the late Maj. S A Lartey (Rtd) 2000-2002 formerly of the Ghana Armed Forces central band. After a careful study of the operations of the cadet corps, it was adviced that, no group of persons could form any other force apart from the Ghana Armed Forces therefore, there was the need for the name to be changed.
In 2003, the then Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports and the National Youth Council agreed to setup a desk at the Ghana Literacy house for Cadet under the name National Cadet Corps’ Ghana to be the central coordinating point for all cadet activities in the country. That is to say in educationally recognized intuitions.
The then sector Minister took keen interest in the development of the cadet and tasked the patron to be reporting daily to him or any of his Deputy Ministers of education, youth and sports. After a very successfully Youth for Peace Camp in 2003 where the cadets played a key role in the organization in the Northern regional capital Tamale. N. N. Tettey-Amartefio was appointed as the Voluntary Ag. National Cadet Coordinator and head of administration of the cadet. This appointment had resulted in the cadet corps exchange with other sister security organization, cadets locally and internationally.
The Ag. National Cadet Coordinator N. N. Tettey-Amarteifio and Mr. David S. Eklu (DCOP) who was then the Director of Police Public Relations in February 2002 after meeting with the then Inspector General of Police, had the approval to form the first police cadet corps at St. Thomas Aquinas Secondary School in Accra and later spread across the country. The Fire, Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority and the Immigration Service have also been able to establish Cadet Corps in most of the educational intuition in Ghana.
- St Thomas Aquanas Secondary School – 1st Police Cadet Corps (2002)
- Akosombo International School – 1st Fire Cadet (1995)
- Kpetoe SHS – 1st CEPS Cadet Corps
- NVTI Assin Fosu – 1st Immigration Cadet Corps 2016
Currently, the corps has a minimum strength of sixty (60) membership in every member institution and exists in about one thousand two hundred and seventy-six (1,276) basic, Secondary, and university intuitions with a total membership strength of seventy-six thousand five hundred and seventy-seven (76,577) as of July 2019. The National Cadet Corps Ghana is an amalgamation of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Police, Fire, Customs and Immigrations Cadet Corps in the country and believes in the inculcation of the spirit of Disciple and Loyalty among the youth through its various activities.
The early vision to help curb the level of indiscipline in our educational institution and to plan effectively for the cadet corps as it is in other advanced countries has yielded a positive result giving Ghana cadet the opportunity to travel abroad to share good exchange values and host those countries in similar exchanges over the years.
Cadet Corps in Ghana can boast of being the largest well organized youth educative organization that is National spread in all the sixteen regions and easy to mobilize for National development duties in Ghana.
