No Pakistan order banning male professors from teaching women: govt

Education officials say Pakistan's Punjab province has not banned male professors from teaching female students in universities, as claimed in posts stating the decision was made by Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif. Public universities in the province have also made no announcements about such a policy.

"Maryam Nawaz's historic decision," reads an Urdu-language Facebook post shared on May 19, 2025, referring to the chief minister of Punjab -- Pakistan's most populous province.

"Decision to remove male professors from female class and appoint female professors from June 1st."

Similar claims have circulated since February in similar TikTok, Facebook and X posts.

"Mashallah (God has willed it). This is wonderful news," read a comment on one of the posts. Another said, "Great decision."

Education officials, however, refuted the claim.

"No such decision has been taken. Anything circulating regarding this are rumours only," said Noor ul Huda, a public relations officer for Punjab Minister of School and Higher Education Rana Sikandar Hayat, on July 1.

Mukhtar Ahmed, chairman of the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan, also told AFP on July 3 there was "no official legal notification" about preventing male professors from teaching female students.

Pakistan has no government policy of segregation by gender, but in the past some institutions have independently ordered male and female students to be kept apart (archived link).

"In women-only institutes priority may be initially given to female professors for teaching students however in many instances that's not possible -- male faculty are employed," Ahmed said.

Checks on the websites and social media pages of Punjab public universities, including the University of the Punjab and Government College University Faisalabad, found no such policy had been announced (archived here and here).

The same claim was also previously debunked by local fact-checking organisation Geo Fact Check (archived link).