The department of education catholic diocese of Sokoto held a summit from the 5th of August, to 6th of August, 2019 on the theme; Education Quality Assurance: the way to ensure improvement of learning outcomes in schools. Participants at the summit were heads of schools and the assistance, schools Bursars, PTA chairmen and Secretaries. The focal point for the summit was to draw a plan for education in the diocese for the next five years. On his opening address, His Lordship, Most Rev. Dr. Mathew Hassan Kukah, the Bishop of Sokoto Diocese and the Proprietor of the Catholic Schools in the diocese reflected on his achievements in the diocese which he believed was based on the 10 year development plan he had for the diocese when he became the Bishop of Sokoto Diocese. ‘’First, at the initial stage when I came to this diocese as the Bishop, we had a 10-year development plan for the Diocese. This plan was to cover some of the areas I was hopeful that by the grace of God; we could achieve. The development plan was made to cover the period of 2012 t0 2022. Today, the Diocese has been able to achieve far more than expected in less than five years. Some of these achievements include; building of churches, building of secretariat, modeling the Cathedral, building pastoral centre and some other things’’.‘’Having achieved these plans, our next focus now in the Diocese is education.’’ According to his Lordship, a 5-year development plan for education in Sokoto Diocese is expected to cover from 2020 to 2025. The bishop maintained that for us to achieve a standard, we must reevaluate the quality of our school environment, and must have higher objectives, values and ideas that are relevant to our schools. We must develop a manual that will guide us to have a right mind set and common ideas about the direction we should follow in improving the quality of education in our schools. We must ensure teachers are skilled in education and have basic requirement of ICT and be able to transmit knowledge and skills to learners using ICT (technology).We must ensure participation in workshops/seminars, competitions and other Educational events organized by our states Government. The Bishop in his final address recommended the following to be set as goals to be achieved in the next five years; to have a decent science laboratories in all Catholic schools in the Diocese, to have a decent library/e-learning centers in all Catholic schools in the Diocese, to have a decent learning environment in all Catholic schools in the Diocese. ‘’If by the end of the five years, we are able to achieve 3-5% of our development plan, we will be able to tell ourselves “we have done well”. The education Secretary Rv. Jude Okpanachi thanks the bishop for organizing the summit and expresses optimism that at the end of the five years, Catholic schools in the diocese will be recognized at the National level both in academic and infrastructural development. He calls on the parents, the teachers the religious and well-meaning Nigerians to support the bishop in actualizing his dream for a quality education in the diocese. About 64 persons from 9 schools attended the summit across the diocese from Kebbi, Zamfara, Katsina and Sokoto which lasted for two days.
