The structure today called William V. S. Tubman High School was built and equipped through the joint partnership of the Government of Liberia and the San Francisco State College of the United States of America in 1967. Originally, the building was dedicated as the Monrovia Junior-Senior High School. Other modern institutions erected along with Tubman High were the Garretson W. Gibson Elementary School, Newport Junior High and Boatswain Junior High Schools respectively all of whom were amalgamated into the Monrovia Consolidated School System (M.C.S.S.) under the Ministry of Education. The Rev. Emmanuel Johnson was named first superintendent of the M.C.S.S.

The original students of Tubman High were transferred from Laboratory High School, an extension of the University of Liberia. It was during the first commencement ceremony of the school when it was renamed in honor of the eighteenth president of Liberia, Dr. William V.S. Tubman, in 1968. The principals of Tubman High were always appointed by the president of the Republic of Liberia due to the school’s strategic importance in the country’s education system. Its first principal was Mr. George Clinton who served for a short while. He was succeeded by Mr. A. Nanu Manley, a staunch educator and disciplinarian.

Prior to the civil war in Liberia, the annual enrollment of Tubman High was two thousand students. The school offered programs in Business and Industrial Arts. Throughout the late sixties and eighties, Tubman High enjoyed a reputation of quality education and discipline. By then it was considered the most modern high school not only in Liberia, but throughout the entire West Africa. Its motto is “Loyalty and Patriotism”, the driving force behind its students’ advocacy for national social change.

As a result of the Liberian war, the physical structure and instructional facilities of Tubman High suffered extensive damage thereby incapacitating it from perpetuating the school’s aim of providing quality education to all irrespective of race, nationality, creed, social and ethnic affiliation.

Saywalah Kesselly

National President