DoDLive Bloggers Roundtable - Literacy Program for ANSF

DoDLive Bloggers Roundtable with Dr. Mike Faughnan, chief of the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan/Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan Education Division. NTM-A/CSTC-A established the current literacy program in September 2008. The curriculum they teach was developed by the Afghan Ministry of Education. Dr. Faughnan will discuss their objective, which is to provide all illiterate members of the ANSF with a basic primary education in literacy and numeracy. They currently teach to the third grade level, and are developing a curriculum to expand their instruction to the sixth grade. They are working with the training components of NTM-A to develop skill training specific to military and police specialties, e.g. medical, signal, and field artillery. Approximately 25,000 ANSF personnel are currently enrolled in the literacy program. NTM-A/CSTC-A intend to grow the ANSF student population to 50,000 by December 2010 and 100,000 by July 2011. Their contractors currently employ more than 700 Afghans as instructors and we teach in more than 200 locations around the country. To date, nearly 4,300 ANSF personnel have completed the program to the third grade level.

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