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September 07, 2010Afghan Literacy
The U.S. military is mounting a massive effort to help teach Afghan soldiers and police to read after concluding that literacy is “the essential enabler” to the local security forces’ success.“How do you expect a soldier to account for their weapon if they can’t even read the serial number?” said Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, head of the NATO-led effort to train the Afghan national security forces.
“It’s really challenging for some people to fully appreciate just how illiterate most of this population is,” Caldwell said. “It doesn’t mean they don’t have street sense and they’re not smart in many ways. But they don’t have the education … to look at a series of numbers and be able to read it.”
The literacy rate for incoming Afghan army and police recruits is about 14 percent to 18 percent, Caldwell said.
Is anyone teaching the Taliban how to read?
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