Over 60 new teachers ‘desert’ rural Zambezi!

“These transfers are not initiated here. Teachers just come with letters already signed to the DEBS office that ‘I have already been transferred and I am going back!’ But the teachers are still drawing salaries under Zambezi!” –

Lusaka, – Feb. 9 – About 61 teachers posted to rural schools in Zambezi District following the recruitment of over 30,000 teachers in 2022 have left the District on transfer, with most of them citing illness.

However, Zambezi District Commissioner, Mr. Simeon Machayi, is not convinced by the reasons advanced by most teachers, who continue to draw their salaries on establishments in the District.

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Mr. Machayi said most of the teachers sent to Zambezi look at the area as too remote and fail to adapt to the environment.

“Most of them, I do not know how they negotiate with doctors to write them medical conditions which they never brought up at the time they were seeking employment,” he said in an interview. “From the over 500 teachers that we received in 2023, about 61 have already left the District on transfer. These transfers are not initiated here. Teachers just come with letters already signed to the DEBS office that ‘I have already been transferred and I am going back!’ But the teachers are still drawing salaries under Zambezi.”

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Mr. Machayi said he has records of personnel from Ministry of Education Headquarters who have been signing on the transfer letters for the teachers to be removed from the District.

“So, this time around, I will be coming to Solwezi with a list of those teachers that have been transferred from Zambezi, which I have already compiled to present to the Permanent Secretary so that maybe those teachers are removed from our payroll or they are dismissed,” he said.

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