Othusitse Othusitse, Headmaster of Francistown Secondary School confirmed that vandalism exists in his school, but said that it is not as serious as he has observed in other schools.

However, Othusitse said they usually find out in some cases that damaged property like windows are always broken deliberately. Othusitse says that nowadays a common vandalism that he has observed is that emergency fire buttons enclosed in glass covers are a target by students. "These fire alarm buttons are written 'break glass here' and this should only be done when there is an emergency. But all over the school, those glasses have been broken," said Othusitse, adding that fire extinguishers are also being vandalised.

Othusitse added that lockers are also vandalised but said that, students from other schools who visit them usually vandalise his student's lockers and steal their textbooks. He recalls an incident where a certain school slept at his school and the following day when they left, it was discovered that several lockers had been vandalised.

Even though Othusitse called the visiting school's headmaster to complain about vandalism, they never recovered property stolen and his school had to bear the responsibility of repairs. On what kind of punishment they mete out to those who vandalise school property, he said: "When there is evidence that a student has vandalised property, we call their parents and discuss the appropriate punishment like paying back the property." \

Marcos Maedza, headmaster for Pekenene Community Junior Secondary School in Mahalapye says that vandalism of school property is a national problem.

Maedza said that in Pekenene, they are managing to overcome this problem and this year he said he has received only one report concerning a damaged window in the dining hall.

He quickly points out that there may be other damages that have not reached his attention, as there are other people he works with who can handle such reports.

"We are succeeding and mind you, we don't have programmes in place but what we do is talk to the students and teach them how to care for school property," said Maedza.

Common vandalised property in his school includes windows, doors and locks. One thing that Maedza believes has helped in lowering vandalism is that repairs are made quickly before damaged property becomes a common sight in the school.

"If we leave the door locks hanging and windows broken for a long time students will think that is how it should be.

But before they can even see that any damage has been done, we fix the problem," he stressed. Maedza says that in the past years, huge amounts of money has been spent on vandalised property but since he joined Pekenene last year, there has been a tremendous decrease of money spent on such repairs.

However, Mater Spei Headmaster Fraser Tlhoiwe says that vandalism of property in his school is not a big issue.

He explains that usually they have common cases of wear and tear and if it happens that a student vandalises property, it is not usually deliberate and the students always report such incidents themselves to their teachers.

"At the moment we have the Botswana Telecommunication Corporation telephone booth vandalised and we don't believe that it was vandalised by our students as schools were closed.

I know vandalism is a problem in most schools but not in my school," Tlhoiwe said.

He added that the reason why vandalism of school property is not a problem in his school is because of the programme they have in place.

He says that the programme teaches students that school property is theirs therefore they should care for it and embrace it.