Day 14 - Frustration

Everyone here told me, but I didn’t listen. They all said, whatever you’re trying to do, plan on doing half as much and having it take twice as long. Such is the case with my efforts trying to set up the English language lab with my Afghan colleagues. I contacted a local civilian here deployed from the Defense Language Institute (DLI) and asked if he could come train the NMAA instructors on the new system. We had it all set up for today, but when he got there, it turns out we mis-communicated badly. He had never seen the system we had set up before. It wasn’t a total bust though. It turns out that he gave me a 24 CD set of all the training materials they use to train the Afghan AF pilots, and I’ve now got a way to integrate their training with our system, and it should turn out quite well. Just a bit of “customization” and a few more days work. I’ll hit that on Monday.

Saturday is really the start of the week here since they take Fridays off. This week began mid-term exams. They call them the 30% test. Most of the courses at NMAA only have two major graded events, a mid-term (worth obviously 30%), and a final, worth the remaining 70%. Their grading is a bit more “generous” than ours. Anything above 50% is passing. We’re working with them on this to make it more stringent. As one of our departing mentors said it well, “50% passing really means you know somewhat less than half the material.” Actually it means you know a bit less than half the test questions, which may or may not be representative of the material, and you have some luck guessing just enough other questions to pass. There is also no concept of failure. Everyone that starts graduates one way or another. If they fail a test, they take it again, usually the same exam, and the two scores are averaged. This is another of our challenges, and the reason we’re here as mentors. The Dean is receptive of making academics more rigorous, but it will take time. We joke that time is measured somewhat differently here.

I’ve requested all the computer science mid-terms to review and comment on. I should have them on Monday. I’ll have them translated and take them myself. The CompSci department is one of the most rigorous and has the best administration of any of them. The course sequence covers all the necessary topics quite well. So far, I’ve found the breadth of coverage is adequate, but there could be more depth and emphasis on detail. I do applaud Col Rahman for his efforts. He is a conscientious department head and wants to ensure he prepares his students well.

Tomorrow is another day off for Memorial Day, but we have a few things planned. More then.