South Africa’s Cabinet has approved R6,1-billion in funding for a national literacy and numeracy campaign.
”Eighty thousand tutors will be engaged to enable 4,7-million adults to achieve basic literacy and numeracy by 2012, at a cost of R6,1-billion,” Themba Maseko, government spokesperson, told reporters on Thursday.
About 20% of South Africa’s 47-million people remain illiterate after decades of apartheid, which deprived black people of a basic education.
Millions of black South Africans languish at the bottom of a competitive job market in South Africa’s booming economy, Africa’s biggest.
A black middle class has emerged since South Africa’s first multiracial elections in 1994 ended apartheid, although the vast majority of black South Africans still live in grim townships, where schools have poor facilities. — Reuters