资料题：The figure of illiteracy in Britain comprises（　）。

It is estimated that some seven hundred million people, about half the world's population, are unable to read and write, and there are probably two hundred and fifty million more whose level of attainment is so alight that it barely qualifies a literacy.Recently the attack om illiteracy has been stepped up.A world plan has been drawn up by a committee of UNESCO experts in Paris, as part of the UNESCO Nations Development Decade,and an international conference on the subject has also been held.UNESCO stresses that functional literacy is the aim.People must learn the basic skill of responsible citizenship: the ability to read notices, newspapers, timetables, letters, price lists, to keep simple records and accounts, to sort out the significance of the information gathered, and to fill in forms.The major areas of illiteracy are in Asia, Africa, and Central and South America.In Africa there are at least one hundred million illiterates, comprising eighty to eighty-five per cent of the total population.In Europe the figure is about twenty-four million, most of them in Southern Europe, with Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Yugoslavia heading the list ( the United Kingdom has about seven hundred thousand) .