Training men and women for ministerial service since 1952 — rooted in Reformed theology, shaped by African context.
The story of PTS Kumba stretches back to 1889, when Basel Missionaries opened a catechist training school in Douala. Over the following decades the work moved through Bonaberi and Buea, was interrupted by the First World War, and was revived in 1931 at Nyasoso as the Catechist Training Institute.
On 1 June 1952, the Theological Training Centre opened its doors in Nyasoso — the date now fondly remembered as the founding of the Presbyterian Theological Seminary. The seminary relocated to Kumba on 10 April 1988, and in 1994 it took its present name and administrative structure, with a Dean, Vice Deans of Academic and Students Affairs, and a Senate of lecturers.
The academic programme has evolved from a three-year Certificate course into today's Bachelor of Theology (BTh), a Master of Theology (MTh) introduced in 2008, and postgraduate study leading to the Master of Arts in Church Leadership and Doctor of Philosophy. Since April 2016, PTS Kumba has been officially affiliated with the Protestant University of Central Africa (PUCA) in Yaoundé.
Today the seminary trains pastors and lay leaders not only for the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon but for several partner denominations, having formed well over a thousand ministers across its history.
To nurture men and women in Spiritual Formation, Theological Training, and Transformational Development for ministerial duties in a multicultural context founded on the Reformed tradition.
The seminary's teaching draws on Scripture as the supreme rule of faith, upholding the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds and the Trinitarian doctrine, while engaging seriously with the biblical, systematic, historical, pastoral, philosophical, and social disciplines of theology.
PTS Kumba exists to form Christian and church leaders holistically, through three linked goals — Spiritual Formation, Theological Training, and Transformational Development — carried out through four abiding commitments: