According to widespread posts on X (Twitter), Facebook, and TikTok, a public school teacher was fired after raising concerns about male security personnel accompanying Punjab’s chief minister on a visit to an all-girls’ high school in Lahore.
The claim is incorrect. The teacher has not been sacked.
On March 10, a user on X (previously Twitter) wrote, “Breaking news.” “The teacher who said, ‘Maryam madam, the girls are getting confused’ has been fired from her government job.”
At the time of writing, the post has received over 500,000 views, 12,000 likes, and 7,000 reposts.
Several posts included screenshots from a broadcast visit by Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif to a girls’ high school in Lahore.
During the stop-over, Sharif is shown speaking with pupils in a classroom, inquiring about the school’s educational standards, when a teacher claims that the young girls are “getting confused” because of the presence of males in the latter’s security detail.
Shortly after the visit, some social media users accused the chief minister of firing the teacher.
Similar accusations were made here and here.
Fact
Samina Shahid, the public school teacher whose picture went viral, has confirmed to Geo Fact Check that she has not been removed from her position. Other government officials familiar with the developments have corroborated her story.
Shahid is not a teacher but rather the principal of the government pilot secondary girls’ school in Lahore.
“These [social media posts] are fake. “There is no truth to them,” Shahid told Fact Check over the phone on March 15. “I am speaking to you right now, sitting in my office.”
Furthermore, Pervaiz Akhtar, the chief executive officer of Lahore’s district education administration, stated that no action had been taken against any teachers at the institution in question.
Azma Zahid Bokhari, Punjab’s information minister, claimed the same.
“No action against any teaching or non-teaching staff has been taken by school administration after the visit of the chief minister Punjab to the government pilot girls high school Lahore.”
