EDUCATION chiefs are celebrating after hitting their target - thanks to a £12,000 windfall from a lottery firm.

GTECH, which supplies terminals for the National Lottery and owns Blackburn-based Europrint, has donated the cash towards the borough's Education Action Zone.

And the £12,000 means the EAZ has now reached its £100,000 target.

The money will be used to form a bid for match funding from the Government to create a Blackburn with Darwen Technology College

The Blackburn college, which will be based around facilities at Queen's Park High School, will be the first in the country to include a special school for children with moderate learning difficulties

Education bosses believe the college will be a major boost to the area with levels of achievement by pupils being increased. "A positive, motivating impact can be made to the area by technology of this sort," said William O'Connor, head of the GTECH Corporation.

Successful bidders for technology college status will receive £100,000 match funding from the Government and a further £300,000 over three years.

GTECH bought an 80 per cent stake in Europrint last summer for £16.8 million. The Preston New Road firm, run by Burnley FC chairman Barry Kilby, specialises in developing media games such as scratchcards.

"We welcome GTECH's involvement in the Blackburn community by way of this generous sponsorship and, along with our other key sponsors, it will ensure Blackburn's resources are improved beyond measure," said Peter Robinson, chairman of Blackburn Partnership, which has been working to recruit sponsors for the EAZ.

Other sponsors include Blackburn Rovers, Eric Wright Construction, Daniel Thwaites, British Aerospace and RHP Bearings.

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