Esther Festini

Esther Festini was a Peruvian educator. She was the first woman that went to the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos and the first one that received a Doctor of Letters.

Her effort to study education at the university was aimed at the official recognition of the Liceo Grau, a school of which she was the founder and director. She went to the UNMSM in 1898; three years later, in 1901, she graduated from high school. In 1904 she obtained the degree of Doctor from the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters thanks to her thesis, Cuestiones relativas a la educación femenina [Questions relating to female education] where she proposed a new model of public education and the need to implement schools for girls.

Upon completing 50 years of teaching activity, she was honored with a plaque in the honor yard of the Miguel Grau National School.

A street in the Lima's Magdalena del Mar District bears her name (Esther Festini de Ramos St.), as well as an educational institution in the Comas District and a secondary school in the San Martín de Porres District, both in the Peruvian capital.