BOLTON primary schoolchildren will be taught more about sex as part of a drive to halve the number of teenage pregnancies.

And officials are also considering making the pill and the morning after pill more easily available to schoolgirls under 18.

The health authority is working with the council on an ambitious 10-year strategy to end the town's unenviable record of having one of the highest rates of under 18 conceptions in Europe.

The strategy, to be completed by March next year, will focus on reducing pregnancies through improved education and more readily available contraception. The plan comes as the nation's favourite soaps, Coronation Street and EastEnders are already tackling the problem of gymslip mums with two of the casts' schoolgirls giving birth.

The authority hopes to appoint two experts in sex and relationship education to boost teaching and ensure a more consistent classroom approach.

Another strand of the initiative will focus on ensuring that where teenage girls do give birth, they are better supported. The strategy is being funded by £130,000 in Government money awarded to Wigan and Bolton Health Authority as part of national efforts to cut Britain's teenage pregnancy rate.

The national average is 46.4 teen pregnancies per 1,000 girls aged under 18. That rate is easily the highest in Europe twice the rate of Germany, three times that of France and six times that of Holland.

But in Bolton and Wigan the figures are even higher at 52.4 births per 1,000.

Phil Ramsell, co-ordinator for Bolton's teenage pregnancy strategy, believes the experience of much of the rest of Europe shows that introducing sex education earlier breeds a more mature attitude.

He said: "Research shows it leads to young people having sex much later. It knocks on the head any notion that more sex education leads to more and more unprotected sex, which is what is often claimed."

Other plans being examined including following the model of a scheme piloted in Manchester where anyone can obtain emergency contraceptives from selected chemists without needing a doctor's prescription.

Mr Ramsell acknowledged some of the measures being considered could be controversial but said it was the health authority's role to be realistic rather than judgemental.

"We either provide these young people with the service they need or we create bigger problems for ourselves," he said.

Support for young mothers is seen as another key part of the strategy, ensuring, for example, that any disruption to their education does not damage their life chances. Mr Ramsell said: "The burden often falls heavily on young mothers. We want to stop them slipping through the net and becoming severely disadvantaged.

The council is expected to find cash to back the strategy, which aims to reduce the number of teen pregnancies by 50pc by 2010. An announcement of further funding for the next three years is expected early next year.

But Mr Ramsell stressed that any plan could not succeed on its own. He said: "The money we are talking about won't achieve what we are looking to do. Quite clearly there are parts of the North-west, including Bolton, where the figures are higher than the national average and those figures tend to follow deprivation figures.

"It tends to be the poorer areas where young women get pregnant earlier so clearly there is a broader approach needed to tackling this issue. If young women feel they have a decent job and good prospects to look forward to, then the chances are we will bring teenage pregnancy right down."