SRINAGAR: Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Wednesday said education and healthcare must remain the Jammu and Kashmir Government’s foremost priorities, asserting that progress in these sectors was essential for children from the Union Territory to compete at national and international levels.
Addressing students at the ALOHA National Level Competition (NLC)-2026 at the Sher-i-Kashmir International Convention Centre (SKICC) in Srinagar, Omar said the Government must focus on improving both sectors as they form the foundation for broader development.
He said other investments would have limited value without corresponding improvements in education and healthcare.
“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,” he said.
The Chief Minister also stressed the need to improve student retention in Jammu and Kashmir. He said the region performs well at the primary and middle-school stages but loses students as they progress to high and higher secondary classes.
Omar said addressing the decline in retention was necessary to protect the future of children in J&K.
He also called for greater coordination between government and private schools, saying students should not be treated differently according to the type of 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.
Omar said the Government was working to make procedures for private schools simpler, particularly those relating to permissions and approvals, with the aim of reducing delays and administrative hurdles.
He said similar efforts were being made to streamline processes in school and higher education. The Government had also passed a bill for private universities to expand opportunities for students to pursue higher education within Jammu and Kashmir, he said.
The Chief Minister emphasised the need to prepare students for emerging areas such as artificial intelligence by incorporating new developments into curricula and syllabi.
Praising the performance of students at the ALOHA competition, Omar said their ability to solve complex arithmetic problems mentally had impressed him.
“Today, these children have really made me feel ashamed. 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, Omar said mathematics had been a difficult subject for him and that simply passing the subject had been a considerable achievement.
“What I saw from these children today makes me feel that whatever they choose to do, they will succeed in it. May Allah give them more success,” he said.
He said children today faced considerably more distractions than previous generations, citing the proliferation of television channels, mobile phones and digital platforms.
“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.
Omar credited parents and teachers for helping students attain the level required to compete at national-level events.
He said the participation of children from different parts of Jammu and Kashmir, other Indian states and overseas had added significance to the event.
“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 said the participation and performance of the students pointed to the scope for stronger cooperation between schools, students and ALOHA in the future.
Praising the participants, Omar said the SKICC had rarely seen such a large gathering of young awardees.
“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,” he said, congratulating the students, parents and teachers.
Omar also said the Government would examine the possibility of introducing mental arithmetic and similar initiatives in government schools to help provide students with a level playing field.
“Today, what I saw makes me believe that the future of Jammu and Kashmir will be very bright,” he said.
