WASHINGTON?President Bush said Saturday that American children have raised $4.5 million to help the youth of Afghanistan in the five months since he asked each youngster to earn $1 and send it to the White House.

“America’s children have been extremely generous in helping the children of Afghanistan,” Bush said in his weekly radio address.

Proceeds supply pencils, notebooks, crayons, soccer balls and other school items.

Afghanistan’s education system has been suffering since the Soviet invasion in the early 1980s, and it nearly ceased functioning altogether in the mid-1990s under Taliban rule.

The nation’s new curriculum includes math, science, Islamic studies, friendship and awareness of land mines, said Nazar Muhammad Karyab, adviser to the Afghan Education Ministry.

Before year’s end, the United States will have sent almost 10 million textbooks to Afghan children, Bush said.