History of HTHS

1. The first school ever established in the Vanimo west coast area was in Lote after the Second World War known as Lote Bible School. It was established by the SVD Missionaries in 1950. The SVD missionaries and the Franciscans taught basic literacy and numeracy skills in this bible school. Their assistant teachers were pioneer catechists namely Peter Vihruri from Vanimo village, Luke Leki from Waromo village and John Kaiyo from Yako village.

The SVD missionaries then handed the school and station to Fr. Martin, a Franciscan missionary but he later left to join the rest of his congregation in Aitape. The SVDs then handed over the school and station to the Passionist missionaries in 1960.

The Passionist missionaries converted the Bible School into a central community school. Students from Vanimo east and west coast including inland areas as far as Ossima, Imonda, Wasengla, Imbio, Imbinis and Krisa were enrolled in the newly established community school. The school built dormitories, kitchen and toilets for boarding students. Students from Vanimo, Waromo and Yako villages commuted to school each day as day students. The St. Joseph sisters from Australia arrived in Lote in 1961 as teachers in the newly established community school. They taught the Queensland syllabus and were assisted by lay missionary teachers from Australia. In 1962, the Passionist missionaries decided to established a new school for Waromo and Yako villages in Baro which was a newly established mission station.

2. Establishment in Baro: Mr. John Howard, the mission school inspector, and the Passionist missionaries decided to transfer all Waromo and Yako students to Baro, where a new school would be built at the newly established mission station. Fr. Rapheal, a Passionist priest, was the first parish priest of Baro. The school infrastructure was built by people of Waromo and Yako in 1963 and supervised by the lay missionaries.

In 1964, Baro community school was opened for enrollment. Pioner teachers were Australian volunteers. Papua New Guinean teachers who graduated from the Port Moresby Teachers College, today the PNG Education Institute, also taught alongside their Australian colleagues. These pioner teachers were Augustine Pohu from Manus province, Martin Weyo from Osol in Vanimo, Clement Kabatara from Kavieng New Ireland province, Augustine Diru from Madang province and Joseph Lava from Central province, along with the lay missionaries from Australia, namely Norma Jenkins, Ms. Pamela, Ms. Deborah and Br. Jerome, OPM.

Baro Community School also enrolled children from Fichin and Mushu villages, since its establishment, until Simola community school was built. The school over the years has undergone several reforms from the beginning as part of the bible school to a community school and to today’s current primary school.

3. Baro Primary School is currently undergoing structural reforms to accommodate the new 1-6-6 structure as it prepares to enroll grade seven in the new high school. By 2028, according to our planning and God’s Divine Will, HTHS will be an Academy counting with a complete structure of 1-6-6, including kindergarten and grade one to twelve, having a total of 1,200 to 1,500 students.