By Godfrey Maganda

Aug. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Southern Sudan introduced mobile schools to improve literacy in the semi-autonomous North African country, said William Ater, an undersecretary in the Education Ministry.

The schools will cater for pastoralist communities by traveling to cattle camps and fishing grounds to provide children with a basic education, Ater said in an interview today from Juba, the capital

The ministry estimates that only 15 percent of people in Southern Sudan know how to read and write, Ater said. Enrolment at primary schools in the region has more than tripled since 2005 to 1.5 million people.

Southern Sudan became an autonomous region following the 2005 signing of a peace agreement that ended a 21-year civil war between Muslim northern Sudan and the mainly Christian and animist south. The region is scheduled to hold a referendum to decide whether to become an independent country in 2011.

To contact the reporter on this story: Godfrey Maganda in Arua via Johannesburg at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net.