Improvements Needed in Accounting for Foreign Student Participation in Defense Training Programs

Due to the concern that increases in the cost of military training for foreign nationals may have been discouraging them from participating in Department of Defense (DOD) training programs, a comparison was made of trends for participating students and countries, and the tuition rates charged. While data for the Foreign Military Sales Training Program were only available for the years 1976-1979, the review compared trends over the past decade of enrollment and costs under the International Military Education and Training Program. A previous report contained the statistics developed during the reveiw, and this final response to the request discusses the deficiencies disclosed.

DOD does not have an adequate system to record and report the number of foreign students trained. The DOD system maintains data on the number of foreign students programmed for training and is not always adjusted to reflect the actual number of students trained. Because of this deficiency, Defense is not reporting accurate information on the actual number of students trained. Neither Congress nor DOD is aware of the total cost of operating DOD programs for the training of foreign military personnel. DOD does not have an accounting system to accumulate and report the amount of costs incurred but not charged in the training of foreign military students in the International Military Education and Training Program. Until DOD accumulates these costs, the reported value of training provided under these programs will be understated. To give Congress a better idea of the total program costs, all costs not charged should be reported.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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