Srinagar, Sep 23: Asserting that strengthening education and healthcare are essential to enable children to compete at national and international levels, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Wednesday said both these sectors are top priorities for the Jammu and Kashmir Government.
Addressing the award ceremony of the ALOHA National Level Competition (NLC)-2026 Kashmir at the Sher-i-Kashmir International Convention Centre (SKICC) in Srinagar, CM Omar praised the participating students for demonstrating strong mental arithmetic abilities.
“These children were amazing. If you had given me a calculator, I would not have been able to find the answers as quickly as they did,” he said.
Recalling his school days, the Chief Minister said mathematics had been a difficult subject for him and that merely passing it had been a significant achievement. “I know how many times I had to study it. What I saw from these children today makes me feel that whatever they choose to do, they will succeed in it,” he said.
The Chief Minister said children today face greater competition for their attention due to television channels, mobile phones and digital platforms, making it difficult to keep them focused on one activity.
“In our time, we did not have so much competition for the attention of children. We had hardly one channel on television. Today, when you have 30, 40 or 50 channels and then a phone to turn to, keeping a child interested in one thing is very difficult,” he said.
He credited parents and teachers for helping the children reach a level where they could compete successfully at national-level events.
“The biggest responsibility for the government is to pay attention to these two things and how we improve the education system and how we improve the health system. Only then can our children compete not just at the national level but at the international level,” CM Omar said.
The Chief Minister also stressed the need to improve student retention, saying Jammu and Kashmir performs well at the primary and middle-school levels but witnesses a decline as students progress to higher classes.
He called for concerted efforts to reduce dropout rates and ensure that children remain within the education system through the higher secondary level.
He also called for greater cooperation between government and private schools, saying children should not be treated differently based on the institution they attend.
“This is not a competition between a private school and a government school. The children are ours, whether they study in a government school or a private school, and they are the future of Jammu and Kashmir,” he said.
He said the government was working to simplify procedures for private schools by reducing hurdles and delays related to permissions and approvals.
The Chief Minister said the government had also passed legislation for private universities to create greater opportunities for students to pursue quality higher education within Jammu and Kashmir.
CM Omar stressed the need to prepare students for emerging fields, including Artificial Intelligence (AI), by incorporating new developments into the curriculum and syllabus.