Availability of teachers, quality of education and free and compulsory education . There is a shortage of mathematics and science teachers which leads to learners obtaining poor results in those subjects. . The criteria for the appointment of senior teachers are not clear. . There is no career guidance to assist learners to select subjects that will afford them good job opportunities. . There is a lack of learner support material. . There are delays in the provision of free and compulsory education by government. . There is no consistency between the curriculum at secondary school level and tertiary level. . There is only one Mpumalanga Regional Training Trust which offers skills development in the province instead of four as planned; . There is no trade centre in Mpumalanga to accommodate technical students in order to do trade tests to prepare for employment on completion of their studies. . There are no libraries and laboratories in the communities to assist learners with their studies. . Schools in the Bushbuckridge area are classified into quintiles one, two and three. Schools in the region suffer on account of cross provincial border anomalies, for example, schools which had been classified as quintile 2 schools while under Limpopo, are now categorised as quintile 3 schools under Mpumalanga, and as a result lose out on being classified as 'No fee' schools. This results in young learners having to cross busy national or main roads running through the village in order to get to suitable schools.