YOUNGSTERS at 30 York schools are still being taught in mobile or temporary classrooms, it was revealed.

The figure is higher than in many large urban areas - including Manchester, which has 23, Liverpool with 25, and Coventry with 13.

The Department for Education, which published the statistics, said temporary classrooms were not a suitable long-term option and should be replaced.

In East Riding of Yorkshire, 63 schools still had temporary buildings. No figures were available for North Yorkshire County Council, the department said.

Many of the makeshift buildings being used by head teachers date back to the 1960s and 1970s.

They were considered a fast and cheap solution to spiralling school populations - but were not intended for decades of service.

Education Minister David Miliband said he did not want to see children being taught in them - even on a medium-term basis. But he did not blame local education bosses and admitted that some head teachers had no other choice.

He said: "The department does not encourage the replacement of defective permanent accommodation with temporary mobile classroom accommodation.

"But we do accept the necessity, in some cases, to respond to short-term need or emergencies."

Although many local education authorities across the country were in a similar position, some did not have any temporary classrooms.

Details of temporary building use comes in the wake of a pledge by Chancellor Gordon Brown to revamp schools.

In last month's Budget, he said: "I can announce that to advance modernisation plans, the overall capital investment budget for English education - which was £1 billion a year in 1997 - will be £6 billion next year rising to £8.1 billion a year by 2008.

"Our capital investment allocations will ensure, for every constituency in the country, that by 2015 every secondary school can be refurbished or rebuilt with world-class technology in every school and the best state-of-the-art learning support in every classroom."

Updated: 10:30 Wednesday, April 07, 2004