Training Illiterate Afghan Soldiers To Read Maps, Police To Write Tickets

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN

07.17.2010

Story by Michael Faughnan_Ph.D. 

NATO Training Mission Afghanistan

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The NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan recognizes the impact of illiteracy on the development of the Afghan National Security Forces and is taking dramatic steps to improve the situation. Prior to the Soviet invasion in 1979, Afghanistan had a growing educational base that included ten established universities.

At that time, the literacy rate approached 22 percent. Thirty years of warfare destroyed the Afghan school system and left a generation of young people incapable of reading. These are precisely the young men and women the ANSF must recruit to man its forces. Determination of a current overall literacy rate is difficult because it varies so greatly across the country. Many organizations have conducted literacy surveys in an effort to determine a national literacy rate. Most find an overall literacy rate of approximately 28 percent. The literacy rate among men is considerably higher than among women (44 percent to 12 percent). These rates vary widely across the country with urban areas having a higher rate than rural. The highest rates are found in Kabul (Male:58 percent; Female:42 percent; Overall:50.4) and the lowest are found in Zabul (Male:.9 percent; Female:.1; Overall:.5). Consequently, in some provinces it is nearly impossible to find a literate recruit.

Illiteracy is felt by the security forces in several ways. First, it prevents soldiers and police officers from fully performing their duties. An illiterate soldier cannot read a map and an illiterate policeman cannot write a report or identify suspect vehicles. Second, the training provided to the illiterate must be task oriented. Skills must be taught through supervised, hands-on repetition. Third, training in advanced concepts and skills cannot be conducted. Sophisticated skills required by medics, logisticians, computer specialists, and others simply cannot be taught to an illiterate person. Without literate soldiers the development of modern army and police forces is simply not possible. Recognizing the training and operational issues created by illiteracy, the NTM-A Education Division, working out of CJ-7, has developed a robust and growing program to provide training to illiterate members of the ANSF. Soldiers and police attend literacy instruction in their unit areas. NTM-A currently employs more than three hundred instructors in support of the Army and 318 in support of the police. To meet the known requirement within the police forces, an additional 700 instructors are being added in the near future. All of the instructors are Afghan nationals. They are required to have at least a high school education and pass Ministry of Education literacy instructor certification requirements.

The Ministry of Education developed the curriculum NTM-A instructors use. It provides students with the basic literacy and numeracy skills normally attained through completion of the third grade. In addition to reading, students learn basic mathematics skills including three digit multiplication and division. To date, more than 2,500 members of the ANSF have completed the third grade program. With completion and the awarding of a Ministry of Education certificate, these soldiers and police are eligible for entry into the larger adult education program at the fourth grade level.

NTM-A is not satisfied with this success. The command’s goal is to provide this basic literacy capability to every member of the ANSF. With at least a 70 percent overall rate of illiteracy, this remains a difficult task. Work has begun on the next step as well. A working group is currently modifying the Ministry of Education’s fourth through sixth grade curricula for presentation to adult learners. Additionally, the team will work to incorporate basic military skills and tasks as part of the lessons. For instance, early planning suggests that first aid training could be used as part of a science credit.

Training the thousands of illiterate members of the ANSF is certainly a daunting task. The command sees literacy training as one of the pillars upon which a new, vibrant Afghan society will be built. NTM-A expects that our literacy program will ultimately support the broader development of Afghanistan through the development of literate security forces. As soldiers and police transition from uniformed to civilian life, the resulting increase in literacy of the overall population will have a beneficial impact that we can only imagine.