Chalimbana University has been born from the original Jeanes School, which was opened in 1939, as a Jeanes Training Centre for community teachers.
It is located 57 km east of Lusaka in Chongwe district.
In the 1950s the college was affiliated to the University of Salisbury – Southern Rhodesia as Chalimbana Teacher Training College; training both primary and secondary school teachers.
The college became exclusively in-service in 1970 to service primary school teachers and administrators and was renamed NISTCOL. In 1975 Advanced Primary Course (APC) and Advanced Industrial Arts (AIA) was introduced.

These were upgrading courses for primary school teachers who had the necessary school certificate qualifications. These were one-year courses. In 1و989 Diploma in Basic Education for Science, Mathematics and English were introduced which was later in 1995 affiliated to the University of Zambia under the name of Secondary Teachers’ Diploma. In 2005 Diploma in Education Management by distance learning was introduced.
This has continued to date as the Education Leadership and Management course.