Labour has called for the Army to become "smarter" after research showed too many recruits struggle with basic reading and writing.
The Army's own findings show that up to half of recruits have the literacy and numeracy skills of the average 11 or seven-year-old, the party said.
A greater emphasis on learning could transform the Armed Forces, Labour's shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy said ahead of Armed Forces Day.
In a wide-ranging call for better conditions for those who fight for the UK, Mr Murphy also said that companies should also be banned from discriminating against employing reservists. Labour has criticised the Coalition Government's decision to cut the size of the Army from 102,000 to 82,000, but admits it cannot pledge to undo the cuts.
"If our Forces are going to be leaner, they can also be smarter," he said.
He went on: "High-skilled Scottish personnel in the British Armed Forces would have not just greater ability to perform to their maximum ability on operations, but a higher chance of progression within their chosen service."
But he warned education must begin whenever recruits sign up.
"Some of those who join at 16 will have done so because they have fallen out of the state education system," he said.
"The answer is not to stop them joining the Army, but to make education a different experience within the military."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article