$200 million taken from US taxpayers to allegedly teach Afghan Army members how to read mostly squandered, US gov. failed to supervise program, handed cash to private contractors-Daily Beast

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1/28/14, "After $200 Million, Afghan Soldiers Still Can’t Read," Daily Beast, Josh Rogin

"In addition, many of the soldiers who have been educated at U.S. taxpayer expense are no longer in the Afghan Army. The ANSF has a remarkably high attrition rate, between 30 and 50 percent a year. 

As of Feb. 2013, roughly half of the ANSF was still illiterate, according to some of the officials in charge of the literacy training. Moreover, the U.S. government is not able to verify if the program is working....

SIGAR identified several other flaws in the literacy program. The program didn’t track students after their courses to be able to follow up on their progress. Further, the program, which relied on private contractors to teach the courses, did not specify what the curriculum should contain or monitor the majority of sites where classes were held. This led to what the report called poor implementation by contractors.

Many of the new recruits were sent into the field with no literacy training at all. “45 percent of police personnel recruited between July 2012 and February 2013 were sent directly to field checkpoints without receiving any literacy training,” the report stated.

Without being able to read, it makes it difficult for soldiers to do all but the most basic tasks and to reach any level of professionalism, NATO and ISAF officials told the SIGAR investigators."...via Drudge



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