Zaynab al-Atreby
School Principal
Zaynab al-Atreby is an Egyptian woman pioneer of education, who was among the second group of female students to enter Cairo University. Although Zaynab was one of four sisters, she was the first and only woman in her family to receive a university education. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the Department of Geography at the Faculty of Arts, Cairo University, before attending the Institute for Women’s Education to be trained to work as a teacher. In the interview, Zaynab al-Atreby spoke of her education and her career journey as a teacher, from working at Helwan High School, Kobri al-Qobba School for Women’s Literacy, and then in al-Saneyya School, before serving at the Institute for Education at Cairo University.
As a child, Zaynab grew up surrounded by the mutual love and respect between her mother and her Azhar-educated father, and their continuous concord on their children’s upbringing. She recalled her parents’ impact on her life, their interest in knowledge and art, their unceasing support for her education, and their close attention to securing her with a religious upbringing. Her three brothers died at a very young age, and she grew up with her sisters. Among her fondest family memories were the girls’ visits to Cicurel stores to buy fabric and design patterns. Zaynab spent her summer vacations drawing, sewing, playing the piano, and reading novels and poetry. Her father would get her a lot of novels, especially those by Mustafa Lutfi al-Manfaluti, to read during the summer vacations with her elder sister, Labiba, who only received a primary education.
Zaynab received her primary education at al-Mansoura Primary School, which was a coeducation school founded in the 1920s. She noted that the families at that time did not object to a mixed-sex school. After finishing primary school in 1925, Zaynab was enrolled in the boarding department of Shubra Secondary School for Girls, where she spent all the weekdays in school, and came home on the weekends. At school, the educational system was strict, but the administration treated the girls like one big family, and granted them the freedom to express their opinions. Each class contained 20-25 students who strictly followed the system all day long, from six in the morning, and until bedtime at eight in the evening. Zaynab also spoke of the school’s comprehensive attention to all aspects of the learning process, including science, sports, art, religious education, hygiene, and proper nutrition.
Zaynab hated the mathematics classes taught by Sir Effendi Mokhtar al-Gammal, but loved the Arabic language classes, and enjoyed writing composition. She remembered her Arabic teacher, Sheikh Abd al-Latif al-Maghraby, who praised her writing style, and her chemistry teacher Sir Effendi Fouad Saeed, among the Egyptian nationals who taught her. As a young girl, she loved all her teachers, and did not feel any resentment towards the colonial presence of the British and French nationals who taught her at school. It was not until later in her life when she realized the severity of the colonial occupation. Zaynab also recalled the profound dedication of the school principal Abla Ensaf Serry, who is one of Egypt’s most prominent women pioneer of education, and spoke of how deeply she loved, respected, but also feared Ms. Ensaf. As for her colleagues, Zaynab remembered Ihsan Awad, Asmaa Fahmi al-Kashif, Safiya Mousa, Nafisa Hussein, and Zainab Refeat.
After her school graduation, Zaynab attended the Faculty of Arts at Cairo University with some of her schoolmates, while others did not pursue a college degree. Zaynab Shaarani, Bothaina Tawfik, and Naguib Mahfouz were among her colleagues at the university, but Zaynab and her female colleagues had no direct interaction with the male colleagues. Zaynab also recounted being summoned by Taha Hussein, the Faculty Dean at the time, who tried to convince her to join the Department of Arabic Language and Literature, for her excellent command of the language, but she decided to study at the Department of Geography. In her third year, she took part in organizing different seminars.
Upon her graduation, she studied for two years at the Institute for Women’s Education, where she received the necessary training to work as a teacher, and learned the work requirements, and how to deal with students in class. The institute graduates used to get paid an extra 15 Egyptian pounds as a bonus to their salary. After completing her education and training, Zaynab worked as a geography teacher, and adopted the same rigor and discipline she learned from her teachers. For five years, she worked at Helwan High School under Principal Galila Sadeq. Zaynab offered the students extra tuition without pay, and built an observatory in the school’s geography laboratory to measure wind speed and direction. Her students loved and feared her deeply, the same way she used to feel towards her teachers. She maintained good relations with her university professors, who provided useful teaching notes and reference books to help her at work. She was so absorbed by her teaching duties at the school that she did not have the time to visit the Japanese Garden in Helwan until the last day of her first academic year as a teacher.
During her teaching post in Helwan, Zaynab was also assigned by the Ministry of Education to teach at Kobri al-Qobba School for Women’s Literacy for one year. She described this period of her life saying, “I worked a lot, and put so much effort into my work,” yet she loved the job, and felt joy in what she accomplished. Zaynab later worked for a year in al-Saneyya School, teaching first grade secondary students, whom she felt lacked discipline. As a result, she suspended classes for two whole weeks, until the girls adhered to the school system. Afterwards, she was transferred to work at Cairo University’s Institute for Education, but she remained close to her students, particularly those she taught at Helwan High School. She kept in touch with some of them, including Eglal al-Sebaei, Naemat Fouad, Bothaina al-Khouly, and Malaka Eriesha, who herself became the principal of Helwan High School, years later.
At the age of twenty-eight, and while working as a teacher, she got married to her university colleague, who served as the principal of al-Ismailia School in Shubra. She had a very happy marriage, and as she put it, “we were very compatible, and cared for one another. It was true love.” Zaynab stated that she was never under any pressure to marry early on in her life, nor ever realizing any conflict between her work and her marriage. She lived in Helwan for one year, before moving to live in a house nearby al-Saneyya School. After having her first daughter, Zaynab was criticized for working. Her mother tried to convince her to quit, but she rejected the idea, and stated, “I loved my work, and I loved the effort.” She ignored the criticism, and continued to work, with the help of her mother, even after having her second daughter, but resigned in 1954, one week before delivering her third daughter.
Zaynab al-Atreby spoke of the jobs available for women at the time, and stated that education and medicine were the only fields of work available and open for women who wanted to work. Women were not allowed to work in many other fields at the time, and men had the social and professional advantage. At some point, women teachers were not allowed to get married throughout their teaching post. Zaynab believed in the importance of women’s education and work, despite the hardships, and renounced the social pressure and the repeated calls for women to quit their jobs. For her, having an education and a career did not alter her personality, and she remained as emotional and empathetic towards all people as she had always been, while maintaining her strict attitude with her students. As she described it, “with the girls at school, I wanted the best for them and that is why I did not spoil or pamper them. I looked after them. I really cared for them.”