A NATIONALLY acclaimed scheme to bleep parents of children who skip classes at a Bolton secondary school could finish at the end of this month due to lack of funds.

On Monday, Education Secretary David Blunkett shone the media spotlight on the project at Smithills school when he announced range of measures to cut truancy rates by a third by the year 2002.

The Minister said he wanted to see schools working in partnership with parents and added: "There are already a number of excellent examples where this is working well.

"In Bolton Smithills School has seen attendance rise by almost 23 pc following a trial of electronic registration in school. There, parents of known truants are supplied with pagers and contacted the moment that their child is found to be missing."

But both the school and the local education department say they cannot afford to fund the successful £1,000 a year scheme when the trial comes to an end at half term.

Paging company Pageone originally agreed to pay for a six week trial at the school but extended it to the half term at the end of May because it proved so successful. Town hall officials are exploring ways of funding the scheme, which stopped truancy in seven out of ten cases, boroughwide when the trial ends.

But education chief Cllr Don Eastwood said: "We are looking at it but we have a very tight budget and have to prioritise schemes in order of importance.

"If we paid for it at Smithills all the schools would want to bring it in and that would mean finding a considerable sum of money that we have not budgeted for.

"My view is that if Mr Blunkett thinks it's a good idea in Smithills he should see it as a good idea all over Bolton and fund it."

A spokesman at the Department of Education said Mr Blunkett had earmarked £22 million to fund new and imaginative ways of tackling truancy from education authorities and suggested Bolton applied for a grant.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.