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Afghanistan: The literacy challenge
Imagine running an organization where most of your employees speak a foreign language, are illiterate and you must use a translator or pictorial instructions to guide them.
Now imagine your organization is a military or police force attempting to secure a war-torn country. You now have an idea of what it is like to be a military instructor in Afghanistan.
Many studies show the vast majority of Afghans are illiterate. Afghans view literacy as a prized possession. Those with an education have a distinct advantage over the rest of the Afghan population.
In a poor country like Afghanistan those with an education have the opportunity to pursue higher education and professional careers.
Since the literate have other job opportunities, only about 14 percent of those who join the Afghan army or police are literate. This low literacy rate places an additional burden on the ability to recruit, train,and employ these Afghan forces.
The literacy issue is one of the biggest challenges facing our troops as they attempt to build the Afghan military into a professional institution.
Literacy programs have been instituted to teach Afghan soldiers and police reading skills up to third-grade level.
All new Afghan soldiers and police are given written exams to determine their literacy levels. Those literate recruits qualify for various programs while the illiterate are given instruction to enable them to read and write paragraphs with punctuation, and some basic math.
The Coalition Forces are hiring Afghan instructors to enable the Afghan government to sustain a formal literacy program for their security forces. These Afghan instructors are typically in their late 40s or 50s and many were educated as military officers during the Soviet occupation. As these Afghan literacy programs expand, the military may be seen as a lucrative career.
In my opinion, literacy is the way to change this society. Continued emphasis must be placed on educating all Afghan soldiers. Education programs much like our GI Bill or college fund should be considered to provide incentives for further educational opportunities up to the high school level.
This will provide better educated citizens to their society upon discharge from the military. These educated Afghans will be better informed and less susceptible to manipulation by Taliban factions.
Literate Afghans will have opportunities that they only dream of today. As Frederick Douglas is often quoted, “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” Literacy is a major step on the Afghan path to freedom.
Col. Gregory T. Breazile is operations officer for the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan/Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan- in Kabul, Afghanistan. He deployed last Aug. 1, from the Joint Staff at the Pentagon, and is serving a one-year tour. He is a combat veteran with 26 years of Marine Corps service. Breazile lives in Stillwater.
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