M.Cur. (Nursing Education) / Performance appraisal is a continuous process for identifying, evaluating and developing the work performance of nurse educators so that the goals and objectives of the college are more effectively achieved, while at the same time benefiting individual nurse educators in terms of reward and recognition of performance, professional development and career guidance. Performance appraisal entails structured formal interaction between an appraiser and appraisee, which usually takes the form of a periodic interview (annual or semiannual), in which the work performance of the appraisee is examined and discussed with a view to identifying weaknesses and strengths as well as opportunities for improvement and skills development. The challenge faced by the nurse educators is the lack of knowledge in execution of the performance appraisal. The purpose of the study is to describe guidelines to improve the performance appraisal system of nurse educators at all eight nursing colleges in Botswana. The research design is qualitative, exploratory and descriptive. Purposive sampling was used in this study to recruit nurse educators to participate in individual semistructured interviews. A qualitative open coding data analysis method was used. The researcher ensured the trustworthiness of the study by using Lincoln and Guba’s model of trustworthiness, which is based on four strategies: credibility, dependability, transferability and conformability. Inadequate knowledge among the nurse educators regarding performance appraisal emerged as the only main theme from the semi-structured interviews. Two subthemes that emerged from this theme were: inadequate knowledge of the appraisers and appraisees regarding the performance appraisal process and inadequate knowledge of the appraisers regarding mentoring and coaching of appraisees during the performance appraisal period. The theme and the sub-themes are conceptualised within the existing relevant literature, and guidelines to improve the performance appraisal system at the eight iv nursing colleges in Botswana are then described. Recommendations are made with regard to nursing education, nursing practice and nursing research. It is recommended that the nurse educators be trained in performance appraisal with emphasis on the performance appraisal process and the application of coaching and mentoring strategies throughout the performance appraisal period.