[3] The National Lyceum Kwame N'Krumah descends from the first public high school institution in Portuguese Guinea, at a time when young people from the colony had to head to the metropolis in order to continue their studies.

13130, of April 22, 1950, the Bissau High School-Lyceum (Colégio-Liceu de Bissau) was created,[5] which provided secondary education to the youth of that time until the 5th year of high school, corresponding to the current 9th year of schooling in the educational system of Guinea-Bissau.

The following year, in 1959, the Lyceum received its own building, an architectural project by Eurico Pinto Lopes.

Honors Kwame N'Krumah, the first President of Ghana, one of the mentors of pan-Africanist ideas.

[7] In 2017, the Chinese Embassy in Bissau announced that it would finance a renovation project for the Honório Barreto Building, headquarters building of the National Lyceum Kwame N'Krumah, with a special emphasis on improving the natural science laboratories.