“If the Afghan government is going to take over all military operations in Afghanistan from U.S. forces next year, it will need to know who’s in its military,” USA Today reports.

“That’s why the Pentagon is looking for a contractor to upgrade the existing Afghan database to determine who is serving in the military, and whether those troops can read and write and whether they have received enough training to be able to train other Afghan troops.”

“Literacy remains a problem for Afghan forces. New recruits receive only a 64-hour literacy course that makes a soldier able to write his own name, according to a recent twice-a-year Pentagon status report on Afghanistan.”