Eglal al-Sebaei
Geography schoolteacher
Eglal al-Sebaei is an Egyptian woman pioneer of education and geographical sciences. She was a geography schoolteacher, and the author of The School Atlas. Following her primary education at the Anglican school, Eglal received the highest marks in Egypt in the national high-school geography exam, which qualified her to join the Department of Geography at the Faculty of Arts, Cairo University. She then studied at the Faculty of Education to train as a teacher, and earned her master’s degree in geography from the Institute of African Studies. In the interview, Eglal al-Sebaei shared her educational and work journey.
Eglal was born in Cairo, as the eldest sister to three brothers and a sister, and grew up in an open-minded family that was keen on education. Eglal attended kindergarten for three years, which she described as an impactful experience to the development of her character and interests, since the school paid close attention to motivating hobbies and skill development, in addition to academic education. Eglal received her primary education at the Anglican School, which was an English co-education school affiliated with the English missionaries, including a number of English teachers, and an English principal who resided in the school. After four years, Eglal was enrolled into the boarding division of Helwan Secondary School, where she studied for 5 years. She recalled that her enrollment in a boarding school was the cause of a big family disagreement between her uncles and her parents. Yet, both her parents insisted that she pursued her high-school education.
Eglal also recalled the hardships of living and studying during the wartime in the 1940s. The British occupation in Egypt besides the eruption of the Second World War created an atmosphere of fear and insecurity, which Eglal described saying, “the country was loaded with the British troops, and those troops were not really English nationals, but mercenaries. They were like mines in the streets to the point that walking was a scary experience. With the war and the air raids, there was no sense of safety. There was an underground shelter in the school backyard, by the garden. When the air raid struck while we were sleeping, our school supervisors would come to our beds, wake us up very calmly, and wrap us in our robes, then guide us with a handheld lamp into the shelter. They followed these steps in a very strict system, then took us back to our beds when the riad was over. We used to hear the attacks and everything. It was a war.”
During her secondary education, Eglal studied under Zaynab al-Atreby and Kawkab Mina -the two geography schoolteachers who impacted her life, and inspired her love for geography. Eglal recounted that there were committees for different school activities, among which were the oratory, poetry, and the English language committees. In addition, Eglal was involved in the political action in school, taking part in strikes under the leadership of the pioneer history teacher, Hekmat Abu Zaid, whom Eglal described saying, “she taught us history, and was a fine patriot…she wore a green dress all the time because that was the color of the Egyptian flag. At the time, the flag was green with a crescent. So, her dress was green, and that never changed.” Eglal continued to participate in political activities and strikes against the British occupation after she entered university.
In 1949, Eglal graduated from the Geography Department at the Faculty of Arts, Cairo University, then attended the Faculty of Education for two years, and earned an equivalent of a master’s degree in education, in 1951. This degree qualified her to work as a teacher, which was the only field of work accessible to women at that time. She also earned a master’s degree in geography from the Institute of African Studies in the same year.
In 1952, Eglal married her collegemate Dr. Mohamed Subhi Abd al-Hakim, who was appointed as a Teaching Assistant upon his graduation, while Eglal was appointed as a schoolteacher at the College for Girls in Zamalek, which offered primary, preparatory, and secondary education, and included an institute for motherhood and childhood. After two years, she was transferred to Princess Fawzia School in al-Sabteya district, where she worked as a teacher from 1952 to 1967. During these years, Eglal temporarily moved to teach at the Old Egypt Secondary School for Girls, in 1959, but due to some disagreements with the school principal, she decided to return to Princess Fawzia School after only eight months.
Eglal loved teaching geography, and cared for her students deeply. Despite her strictness, Eglal’s students loved her, and maintained a very close relationship with her for decades after their graduation. Some of them were inspired by her to specialize in geography and teach it later. Eglal also founded a geography committee at school, and held many exhibitions. The committee activities helped students become innovative, and to enjoy studying geography.
Eglal lived in Russia for three years with her husband, who was the Cultural Attaché. She established a school there, and worked as the school headmaster. Throughout her marriage, Eglal never experienced any conflict between her academic and work achievements, and her duties caring for her husband and two daughters. She always felt proud of herself having accomplished success on both fronts.
Upon her return from Russia, Eglal worked for the Educational Research Center at the Ministry of Education, which commenced its operations as a department in the Ministry, then developed into an independent center. She specialized in educational scientific research, particularly in the field of geography, and minded with modifying and evaluating curriculums and school textbooks. She served as the Head of the Geographical Studies Department at the Center, then as the Director of the Educational Research Center.
Eglal valued her research work because it gave her the opportunity to develop and revise the scientific material in the schoolbooks to keep it up to date. This was not new to Eglal, since she had authored schoolbooks and formulated new curricula before joining the Educational Research Center, as part of her successful applications into the competitions organized by the Ministry to put together the curriculum for a number of academic years. As part of her work at the Center, Eglal traveled on a fellowship to visit a number of universities in the USA.
Throughout her career journey, Eglal al-Sebaei never lost her passion for geography, a subject she described as “the science of sciences.” She believed that geography should be taught among the natural sciences not the social sciences because it encompassed all branches of knowledge. As she put it, “geography should be added to the school subjects of the natural sciences. This is the case in the universities and schools abroad. Geography is taught as a natural science subject, while history is a social science subject. I love geography, and it is who I am -a part of me. Yet, I know nothing about history, and cannot possibly comprehend it, because I was raised to analyze things, to know their foundations, and their roots. This is how I come to understand things. This is how I was taught in primary school.”