• Government isolates itself from reports suggesting that the newly recruited teachers will be replaced if they do not report for work before agreed time.
• Teachers will be given a grace period of three months to report for work before they can be replaced.
• The ministry does not expect anyone to replace the teachers before the grace period elapses as it will be against Government’s policy.

Ministry of Education has isolated itself from reports suggesting that the newly recruited teachers will be replaced if they do not report for work before grace period of three months elapses.
Speaking in an interview with Money FM News, Permanent Secretary Joel Kamoko explained that the newly recruited teachers will be given a grace period of three months to report for work before they can be replaced.
Mr. Kamoko stated that the Ministry does not expect anyone to replace the teachers before the grace period elapses as it will be against Government’s policy.
“I urge Zambians not to politicize the teacher recruitment by misleading the newly recruited teachers with fake information, let us encourage these teachers to report for work so that the country can benefit from this gesture,” Mr. Kamoko said.
This came after Chipangali District Council called on Ministry of Education to clarify on reports of teacher replacement on the newly recruited teachers.
Council Chairperson Maxson Nkhoma said following government’s announcement and subsequent publication of names of newly recruited teachers, panic and agony engulfed many trained teachers who were not selected in the just ended teacher recruitment exercise.
“ The Council has received numerous reports and calls from some of the unsuccessful teachers to the effect that government has started a process of coming up with list of names of teachers that would be used as replacement list of those who will not report for duty at their respective schools for different reasons,” he said .
Mr. Nkhoma stated that it was very important that the Ministry of Education gave the official government position regarding this issue of national importance, as failure to clear speculations would result in unscrupulous people taking advantage of desperate trained teachers to extort money by telling them fake stories.