Education stakeholders in Ebonyi State have rejected the federal government’s proposed scrapping of the 6-3-3-4 education system, advocating improved implementation rather than a policy reversal.

The stakeholders, who spoke separately on Friday in Abakaliki, described the proposed move as unhealthy for Nigeria’s quest to build a functional and competitive education system.

They maintained that inconsistency in policy implementation had remained one of the greatest obstacles to national development.

A professor of educational administration at Alex Ekwueme Federal University, Ndufu-Alike, Chinedu Nwankwo, said the problem with the country’s education system was not the 6-3-3-4 structure but the inability of successive governments to implement it faithfully.

According to him, the policy was designed to produce self-reliant citizens by exposing learners to vocational and technical education from the junior secondary school level.

“The objective was to enable students who may not proceed to senior secondary school or the university to acquire practical skills for employment and entrepreneurship.

“Unfortunately, governments failed to provide the infrastructure, equipment and qualified teachers required to achieve that objective; scrapping the policy will not address those deficiencies,” he said.

Also speaking, Grace Onwe, a director of academic planning in the Ebonyi Ministry of Education, said frequent changes in education policies had continued to affect long-term planning and sustainable development.

Ms Onwe urged the federal government to focus on strengthening existing educational structures through adequate funding, regular teacher training and effective monitoring.

“We should avoid changing policies whenever challenges arise; what is required is commitment to implementation because every reform needs time, resources and consistency to succeed,” she said.

Similarly, the director of schools in the Ebonyi Ministry of Education, Sunday Ogbu, said the vocational component of the 6-3-3-4 system was never fully developed nationwide.

Mr Ogbu noted that many junior secondary schools lacked functional workshops, laboratories and technical instructors needed to equip learners with practical skills.

“If those facilities had been provided from the beginning, many school leavers would have become skilled artisans and entrepreneurs instead of depending entirely on white-collar jobs,” he said.

On her part, a professor of curriculum studies at Ebonyi State University (EBSU), Ngozi Enyi, described policy consistency as a critical ingredient for educational development.

Ms Enyi said countries with successful education systems achieved remarkable results because they sustained well-designed policies over time.

She advised the federal government to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the current system before introducing another educational structure.

She explained that the high rate of out-of-school children across states of the federation, which was cited as a reason for the proposed scrapping of the system, was not due to the 6-3-3-4 structure.

“The high rate of school dropouts or the out-of-school children is not a result of the practice of the 6-3-3-4 as claimed by the Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa; it’s an institutional problem,” she said.

Also reacting, a member of the students’ union government of EBSU, Emmanuel Eze, appealed to the Federal Government to engage students, teachers and education experts before taking a final decision.

According to him, students are more concerned with improved learning facilities, functional laboratories, modern technology, and quality teaching than with changes in educational structures.

The stakeholders unanimously maintained that the 6-3-3-4 education system was introduced to provide six years of primary education, three years of junior secondary education, three years of senior secondary education and a minimum of four years of tertiary education.

They recalled that one of its major objectives was to produce graduates with vocational and technical skills who could create jobs and contribute to national economic growth.

The respondents, however, observed that inadequate funding, poor infrastructure, a shortage of technical teachers and weak implementation had prevented the policy from achieving its intended goals.

They urged the federal government to retain the system, strengthen its implementation, and invest more in technical and vocational education rather than reverting to another educational framework.

The federal government’s proposed reform to scrap the 6-3-3-4 system has continued to draw reactions from stakeholders across the country.

Some stakeholders insisted that effective implementation of existing policies remained the key to improving learning outcomes and national development.

(NAN)