Oprah picks girls for new school

Winfrey wants the school to produce "future leaders"

TV host Oprah Winfrey has named the first girls to be admitted to the South African school she has helped build.

At a meeting near Johannesburg, Winfrey named 73 girls to enter the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls, various newspapers reported.

Winfrey's charity has contributed $10m (£5.3m) to the school, in Meyerton, which is due to open next year.

It will eventually teach 450 girls who show academic talent and leadership but whose families cannot fund schooling.

The school aims to employ advanced education techniques, and communication technology that will allow Winfrey to teach from Chicago.

Winfrey says that she has overseen "even the smallest details" of the construction of the school, jointly funded by the Gauteng Department of Education.

"The school will teach girls to be the best human beings they can ever be," she has said.

"It will train them to become decision-makers and leaders; it will be a model school for the rest of the world."