July 3, 2023
Tarek Refaat

If you were walking down the streets of Maadi, swung by the Maadi Sporting Club and asked some of the members in their late fourties or fifties if they had heard about Mrs Samiha Ghoneim, you will hear answers like, “Of course, she was the principal of my school Samiha Ghoneim” or “She was one of the best principals who ran Lycee Horreya Maadi to date.” You might also hear stories about her exemplary leadership, and how she was kind yet strict.

Born in 1920 in the Governorate of Dakahlia, Samiha was the eldest daughter of Abdul Aziz Ghoneim and accountant in a contracting company. She had 5 siblings; 2 sisters and 3 brothers.

A visionary and progressive for his time, Ghoneim sent his daughters to French missionary school run by nuns, during a time when many girls didn’t go to school and the few who did, didn’t go beyond primary education.

As an honor student, she received free education throughout her school years, She finished high school and ranked 14 nationally in her last year.

She attended Fouad The First University (Cairo University today) where she studied French literature. After graduation, she taught French in a school in Zagazig. Then she moved to Cairo where she taught French at Al Saneya secondary school for girls under the patronage of Karima Al Said, a pioneer educator in Egypt.

After the 1956 war, she joined Lycee Horreya Maadi school as the first Egyptian principal, on January 1957. Her efforts and hard work, setting up the standards for both the school and the students, were recognized by the French government. In appreciation of her work as a principle and her efforts in spreading the French language, she received the Legion of Honor, Chevalier Order in 1975. In 1980, she received the Legion of Honor, Commandeur Order.

Mme. Ghoneim retired in 1985 after a long career, and almost 3 decades as a school principal. Samiha Ghoneim, the daughter of Dakahlia remains an icon of education in both Maadi and Cairo.

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