History of School and Its Founding

Mr. Mark Tillah established the Macdellar Sons of Grace Preparatory School in 2009 when he was a young man (24 years old).​

 

Mr. Tillah grew up as the eldest child in a very poor home. He completed the junior secondary school level of education in 2002. Due to life challenges, Tillah was not able to continue to the senior secondary school, so he left to be a laborer in the farms of others. In 2003, just one year later, Tillah was able to save enough to pay for admission into Apeguso Community Secondary School, which he completed in 2006.

 

Tillah did not have adequate funding to continue to university, so he came back to live with his mother at Kpando Torkor and to help support her small farm. Tillah continued to work on his mother’s small farm until he became a Sunday School teacher in his church. In the process, he began to discover the potential that most children have. He began to organize extra classes for those children who did not have access to other education.

 

Tillah is a very religious man. One day he had a dream, “a revelation from God”, where he was in a multitude of children who were in his formal SHS uniform and he was teaching and singing with them. This revelation came to him three times, and he discussed it with his then-pastor who helped him to realize that he had a calling to help children regain their future. Since that time, Tillah considered it a “calling” and not a mere profession to help children both religiously and educationally through extra classes.

 

Between 2006 to 2008, he did this work voluntarily to support children in the community. He was not yet thinking of establishing a school since he knew it requires a great deal of funding. Private and public schools in the Volta region of Ghana are not free; only those with money have access to this education. However, Tillah decided as of 2008 that he would found a school that would be free for students to attend. His goal was to found a school that would be noted not just in the local community but also in the municipality.

 

Tillah rented two plots of land which belonged to his church in order to start the school. Due to a lack of funds, he used his own hands to create a structure and divide it into three parts with benches. At that time, the only cash Tillah had on hand was Ghc5.00 (approximately 62 cents in USD or $0.62 at that time). He used this money to create admission forms for new pupils.

 

Macdellar started with 9 students, but by the end of the first term there were 29 students and 3 teachers. By the end of one academic year, Macdellar had 71 students enrolled.

 

A year later (in 2009) the church needed the land back, and Tillah went to his home until he was able to purchase the lands where the school currently stands.

 

By 2016, Tillah finally had the funding to enroll at the University of Education, Winneba and studied for a Diploma in basic education. He completed his studies in 2019.

 

The Macdellar Sons of Grace School has been operating since 2009 (14 years) and is now fully registered under the Registrar General Department, Ghana, as a recognized private school. Currently there are 182 students enrolled.