TEMPO.CO, Kabul - A US$200 million aid from the U.S. has been delivered to eliminate illiteracy among Afghanistan security forces. Based on the data, only half of the police and the army in the country can manage basic reading and writing.
This means tens of thousands of troops in the frontline fighting the Taliban cannot read or prepare notes about their enemy, fill orders of supplies and ammunitions, or submit written reports from the battlefield to the headquarters.
Therefore, almost 400,000 army and police personnel are attending literacy classes funded by NATO or the U.S.
“Command officials responsible for the literacy training programme roughly estimated that over half of the force was still illiterate as of February 2013,” said the inspector general for Afghanistan, as quoted by The Guardian.
Afghanistan’s Education Ministry estimated that a third of Afghanistan citizens can read and write. Meanwhile, many of the security personnel are uneducated and come from poor families.
Since literacy is important for a modern army or police forces, the U.S. decided to add more basic training classes five years ago. The classes were held to ensure that new recruits can count, write their own names, and read basic words in 2014.
The training is expected to make security forces understand human rights and the law, be able to read equipment and weapon manuals, understand documents, and avoid corruption practices by tracing their own salaries.
ANINGTIAS JATMIKA | THE GUARDIAN
