The District Development Model (DDM) was presented by the President in the 2019 State of the Nation (SONA) address and adopted by Cabinet in August 2019. The DDM seeks to enhance service delivery in municipalities through collaboration during planning, budgeting and implementation by all stakeholders in a municipality. National, Provincial and Local DDM Champions were appointed and allocated to District Municipalities and Metros across the country. The DBE are DDM National Champions in the Sedibeng District Municipality in the Gauteng Province and the John Taolo Gaetsewe District Municipality in the Northern Cape Province, where Minister Angie Motshekga and Deputy Minister Reginah Mhaule are respectively deployed.

Mr James Ndlebe, Chief Director for Planning and Implementation Support explained that, “We have positioned the Basic Education sector properly in the DDM processes throughout our 75 Education Districts. Education District Directors or their nominated proxies participate in the various DDM technical committees and hubs, where they have been established. Officials served in the Command Councils during the COVID-19 pandemic. DDM work is currently located in the Head of Education Departments’ (HODs) offices or District Coordination line function in most provinces. The sector was workshopped on participation and contributed to the development of the first generation of the One Plan. However, the uptake was slow, but this will be improved in the review of the One Plan. We are in the process of monitoring implementation of the DDM in the sector to identify the weaknesses for strengthening of the programme. We need to be able to quantify our contribution in each Municipality in this financial year, in terms of the number of job opportunities we have created; our financial injection in the development of the local economy and economic growth; and the operational areas that need to be improved in our Education Districts”.

A virtual workshop was conducted with provinces on 2 March 2023, to synchronize the reporting process and templates to collate data were developed and shared with provinces. This was also a platform for the sharing of best practice to improve service delivery. Provinces have been guided to collate a list of representatives at the local, District and Metro Municipality levels and their contact details; a list of the education sector projects and programmes that have been included in the One Plan; and the implementation progress per programme.