Women’s Day Special: The Queen challenged customs and traditions and enabled Saudi women to be educated

How did she strive and continue her mission to spread education?
At the time when Effat searched for education and schools, popular education was present in the
small books in a rudimentary manner
At that time she found women allocating rooms in their homes for girls’ tuition, Some families were
also known to open their homes to educate girls, but there wasn’t an organized education
After the announcement of the unification of Saudi Arabia in 1932, “ King Abdulaziz “ met with the
dignitaries of the “ Hejaz “ and expressed his approval for the approval of girls’ education.
This was in recognition of the role that society plays in the formation of educational schools, but it
was not sufficient. The first step began in the 1940s when “Effat” decided to open a department for
girls’ education alongside the boys’ education department at the “Taif Academy” school .
husband, King Faisal, agreed, and the opening actually took place and Effat joined her daughters in
the sec, but the people’s response to enrolling their daughters was weak amid strong social
opposition, it was closed because of that section after 4 years .
But Effat didn’t give up, so she opened another section in her palace and supervised education in it
herself . she decided to wait for the right time, and in fact 1955 came in Jeddah , she tells her
daughter during her meeting at school and published in ” Dar Al-Hanan”
I woke up one morning and found a strange movement in the house, saying, “My mother brought
sewing machines and various fabrics of taffeta, lace and embroidery tools, and she sat among us with
her friends working on sewing school uniforms, bedspreads and curtains that will decorate the
school, Effat changed her strategy in urging the community to educate .

How did she act after the girls’ section was closed?
She presented her school as a home for orphans to enter education later. Effat did not like the word
orphans, which was the reason for replacing it with the name “Dar Al – Hanan”.
some women refused to join their daughters to the orphanage because of the inferior view that
society has of the orphanage.
Queen Effat decided to announce that her daughters and the daughters of the families she knew
would be enrolled in school , in order to encourage everyone to do that, and thus the number of
female students reached thirty students in the first year and increased to 100 students in the
second year , The enthusiasm of the parents increased, and they demanded that they participate in
the school fees, “ Effat “ decided that she would allocate 30 riyals of the fees paid to take care of
orphans
She didn’t stop her work after the introduction of education. One year after the construction of “Dar
Al Hanan”, turned it into a fully regular school supervised by the Ministry of Education .

What after that ?
Five years later, the first batch of female students graduated from primary education, it is the year
that approved the issuance of the royal decree approving the government’s education for girls after
it was established civilly, and from it, the establishment of girls’ schools began in the capital, Riyadh,
in Mecca and other cities and suburbs, “Dar Al Hanan” continued to expand, and Effat decided to
accommodate its graduates from primary school by opening a school for intermediate education,
The government agreed to this, and the government assigned it the task of supervising all aptitude
tests for all private schools ,in 1963, then a secondary school examination center.

How after this insistence put her mark?
With her determination, persistence, and defiance of the consequences and difficult traditions, Effat
laid the foundation stone for educating Saudi women to educate and advance them, with these great
achievements, she has the right to register her name in the register of the great and immortal Saudi
women.
She passed away in 2000 at the age of 85, after an operation that her health could not bear the force
of the operation, and in appreciation and respect for her, her children founded a university and
named it “Effat University” in Jeddah.

She passed away, but she still lives in the heart of every Saudi woman