SAfrica Pledges $840 Million for Literacy Campaign

CAPE TOWN - South Africa's cabinet has approved 6.1 billion rand ($843 million) 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 6.1 billion rand," Themba Maseko, cabinet spokesman, told reporters on Thursday.

About 20 percent of South Africa's 47 million people remain illiterate after decades of apartheid, which deprived blacks of a basic education.

Millions of blacks 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 blacks still live in grim townships, where schools have poor facilities.