[5] The college was the first institution of higher learning to be established to train teacher-catechists for the eventual Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast.

[6][8][9][10] The idea to establish the college was motivated by the ideals of 18th century Württemberg Pietism inspired by German theologians Philipp Spener and August Hermann Francke.

[5] In the course of the one hundred and sixty years of its existence, the college has run different academic programmes and different curricula have been followed, all tailored to suit the demands of the various times.

The college has the tradition of celebrating renowned achievements on milestone occasions: Thousands of highly skilled and exceptionally disciplined educationists have passed out of the college, and have contributed immensely to the development of Ghana not only as teachers, but also as economists, politicians, lawyers, bankers, industrialists, journalists and clergymen.

[11] A similar teacher-catechist seminary at Christiansborg, started by the German missionary and philologist, Johannes Zimmermann in 1852, was eventually merged into the Akropong college years later in 1856 to become a single entity.

[13][14][15] According to the British historian of missions, Andrew Walls, the catechist-teacher education model adopted by the Basel Mission, was an innovation of the Church Missionary Society pioneered by the Anglican vicar, Henry Venn "as a sort of lower, unordained missionary" - "a subaltern role to facilitate the spread of the Gospel."

The Basel Mission, and later the Presbyterian Church of Ghana also led pioneering efforts in establishing hundreds of primary and secondary schools and teacher-training colleges.

[6][8][9][10] The college started with a five-year teacher's certificate course and later run programmes which included the Cert ‘A’ 4-year course, 2-year Cert ‘B’ the 2-year Post ‘B’, 2-year Post-Secondary, 3-year Post Secondary and 2-year Specialist course in Science, Agriculture and Special Education, The college runs a three-year Diploma in Basic Education programme which started in 2004.