PROBLEM pupils and school laboratories in Bury are to benefit from a share in £16.3 million of government funding for schools in the region.

Bury will receive £268,192 for school labs over the next two years. This money will be used to tackle fundamental deficiencies in secondary school science accommodation, to construct new laboratories or to transform obsolete laboratories at those schools most in need.

It will be up to education bosses to decide how the money is used and which schools will have priority. For 2000/1 Bury will be allocated £57,484 for Secondary School Learning Support Units (SSLSUs), which will increase to £88,840 for the period 2001/2.

The units will provide for difficult and disruptive pupils and will enable schools to provide separate short term teaching and support programmes tailored to the needs of such children.

They will mean that disaffected pupils will be able to remain working in school while their behavioural problems are addressed.

This means the pupils can be helped to re-integrate into mainstream classes as quickly as possible and staff can minimise the disruption caused by the most difficult pupils without excluding them.

The Units are likely to have a maximum of ten pupils at any one time. They will either serve the pupils in the schools in which they are set up, or may serve a group of schools, but they They will not be Pupil Referral Units.

Education spokesman for Bury, Coun Trevor Holt, said: "It's great news and very welcome and shows the government's ongoing commitment to education."