CYNICS may well cast doubt on the bid to stop rowdyism on school buses by making unruly pupils sign good behaviour contracts.

And, indeed, if they look at the amount of trouble on school buses -- with 578 incidents, including assaults on drivers, fires being lit and fighting among pupils, recorded in Lancashire in the last school year alone -- they might well conclude that many of today's youngsters are beyond control.

Will their signing a piece of paper, pledging to behave properly in future, curb this chaos?

Remarkably and encouragingly, the indications are that it will.

For a 'contracts' pilot scheme trialled among pupils of Fearns High School at Stacksteads in Rossendale last year has proved so effective that it is now to be rolled out across Lancashire. The new strategy is believed to be a national first and promises to be copied by other authorities.

The experiment in Rossendale saw the number of children reported for behaving badly on buses fall by 75 per cent -- from 20 to five.

Nor does the scheme lack teeth. For while the County Council reports that the threat of action is enough to make most youngsters behave, those put on contracts find that they will be banned from the buses or face other disciplinary action such as suspension. Other measures include training for drivers on how to diffuse trouble, a new system of recording incidents and extra closed-circuit TV on school buses.

And given the encouraging results it has achieved among Fearns' pupils, it merits a wider test across the whole of Lancashire -- above all, when there is so much trouble and damage to be curbed. Any scheme that combats this problem and at the same encourages better behaviour generally among youngsters deserves to be tried -- and to have the cynics confounded.