School Self-Evaluation (SSE) as an emerging discourse is increasingly becoming relevant in education circles globally. This paper discusses the
implementation and management of SSE in Botswana’s selected secondary schools around a plurality of factors. The paper determines the implementing agencies readiness level to implement and manage SSE; establish approaches to SSE; examine the strengths and challenges facing SSE and determine how the inspectorate and pastoral policy systems support SSE. The study situates itself within the mixed method approach and utilises the concurrent nested case study design which embeds the smaller quantitative component into the primate qualitative component. By utilising purposive sampling technique, focus group discussions used a sample of 16 participants (4 school heads, 3 heads of houses, 6 teachers, 3 school inspectors). Through purposeful random sampling technique, questionnaires were distributed to 70 respondents where 66 respondents participated (5 school heads, 12 heads of houses, 45 teachers, 4 school inspectors). Findings revealed that the readiness to introduce, implement and manage SSE remains peripheral. Multiple technical challenges overly seat behind the implementation of SSE. Paradoxically, SSE has minimally lived up to expectation due to lack of support from School Inspection (SI) and the school pastoral policy system. It is concluded that SSE subsists on theory than praxis; a situation that has occasioned an immature and debased form of the reform. The study recommends a practical based approach to SSE, prioritisation of SSE in the strategic plan and an appreciation of the synergetic relationship between SSE, SI and the school pastoral policy.