Srinagar, Sep 23 (KNO): 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, as per the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO), 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.
Referring to the ALOHA competition, he said the participation of children from different parts of Jammu and Kashmir, other states and abroad was encouraging.
“Children from remote areas of Jammu and Kashmir, along with participants from Karnataka, Rajasthan and other parts of the world, have travelled to Kashmir to be part of this competition. It gives us a lot of hope,” he said.
The Chief Minister appreciated the mental arithmetic abilities demonstrated by the young participants and said their achievements were a credit to their parents, teachers and ALOHA International.
He said participation itself is an achievement and congratulated all the students. “You are all winners, whether you took back a trophy from here or not. Just being here and being able to compete is a victory,” CM Omar said.
He further said the government would explore introducing the ALOHA mental arithmetic programme in government schools to provide children across the education system a level playing field.
“This is something that we need to incorporate into the government school system as well, so that we give our children a level playing field,” he said.
He also expressed hope that the ALOHA programme would expand further in Jammu and Kashmir and congratulated the organisers, students, parents and teachers for the event—(KNO)