Bhengu, Poppy2025-10-072025-10-072025https://hdl.handle.net/10566/21031In South Africa, a country renowned for its athletic talent, many athletes fail to reach their peak performance due to resource limitations, inequalities in selection processes, and other systemic barriers. Existing frameworks often assign responsibility for sports promotion to a single entity, resulting in a siloed approach that fails to leverage the combined resources and expertise of various stakeholders, including local governments, educational institutions, and sports clubs. This study addressed this fragmentation by developing a collaborative model for talent identification and sports development in the City of Ekurhuleni. The study employed a qualitative research approach across five stages. It analysed policies governing school sports in South Africa, reviewed literature on best practices in talent identification and sports development and conducted semi-structured interviews with 22 participants to gather data on current processes, barriers, and facilitators. Document analysis and thematic analysis were employed to extract 20 themes from the collected data. These themes informed the development of the collaborative model. The findings emphasis the importance of a well-integrated and effective sports system for achieving both social and economic goals. Such a system should be performance-driven, equitable, and accessible to all stakeholders, particularly learners and athletes. Furthermore, the research revealed a significant shift in talent identification techniques, moving from an emphasis solely on physical characteristics to a more holistic approach that incorporates psychological, social, and contextual factors critical for talent development.enTalent identificationSports developmentAthletePoliciesThesis