Fatima Boulbessra

Algerian educator who founded North Africa's first girls' school in 1903.

Fatima Boulbessra (1880–1965) was an Algerian educator and suffragist who pioneered women's education in French North Africa. Despite illiteracy rates exceeding 90% among Algerian women during the colonial era, she established the École Normale Islamique pour Femmes in Algiers in 1903—the first teacher training school for Muslim women in the region. This institution trained hundreds of female educators who later opened girls' schools across Algeria. Boulbessra also authored Education and the Emancipation of Women, advocating for bilingual education that preserved Arabic while incorporating French colonial curricula. Her work influenced later feminist movements like the Algerian Women's Movement. Despite her contributions, her name remains underrecognized internationally due to post-independence historiography biases.