$24 million US tax dollars have been spent on Afghanistan literacy since 2008, only 14% have even 1st grade literacy skills

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5/9/11, "Half of Afghan Military Forces Won't Achieve 1st Grade Literacy Level by 2012," CNS News, Edwin Mora

"The U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) training mission in Afghanistan predicts that only about 50 percent of Afghan military forces will be able read and write at the 1st grade level by January 2012, according to a Department of Defense report mandated by lawmakers.

ISAF “estimates that the 1st grade literacy level of enlisted soldiers and policeman [together known as the ANSF] will rise from 14 percent to over 50 percent in the next ten months,” states the congressionally mandated report, which covers progress in Afghanistan from the beginning of October 2010 through the end of March 2011."...

Presently 86% percent are completely illiterate.

(continuing): "According to the DOD report, which was released last month, illiteracy remains a “key challenge” to having a self-reliant and professional Afghan National Security Force (ANSF), which is essential for the U.S. withdrawal and transition of security tasks to Afghanistan that is expected to commence this July...

In the report, DoD acknowledges that a 1st grade literacy level “represents only a very elementary grasp of literacy (numbers, letters and some simple words).”...

The education chief of the ISAF training mission in Afghanistan told CNSNews.com last summer that he was

• unsure when the ANSF will be fully literate.

According to the education chief, the literacy training program started in October 2008. The U.S. has spent well over

• $24 million on those efforts."...

via Drudge Report