From 1947 to 1962 he worked as a school teacher for the Department of Education in Natal, South Africa.
[1] In 1979, Pachai returned to Africa,[2] becoming the inaugural Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Sokoto, Nigeria (1979-1985).
[3] Many years later, he would spend a year teaching in The Gambia (1998) Pachai returned permanently to Nova Scotia in 1985, where he became the executive director of the Black Cultural Centre (1985 to 1989) and, subsequently, the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission (1989 to 1994).
[4] He became an authority on African Nova Scotian history, penning several books on the subject, including Beneath the Clouds of the Promised Land (Volumes 1 and 2, 1987 and 1991), Peoples of the Maritimes: Blacks (1987, 1993), and Historic Black Nova Scotia (2006).
[2] He was made a member of the Order of Canada in 2002 and in 2006 was a recipient of the Gandhi, King, Ikeda Award (Morehouse College).