Vienna - Three children fathered by Josef Fritzl, the Austrian who has admitted imprisoning for 24 years a daughter who bore him six children, want to go back to school, it was reported Saturday.

However - with public interest in the case still enormous and Fritz's trial due to begin in November - the schools involved were fearful of a media invasion, the Kurier newspaper said.

The three chiildren in question were those who grew up with Fritzl and his wife - their grandmother - in the house where the 73-year-old had his daughter and the three other children imprisoned in a cellar.

Since the bizarre case came to light in a flood of publicity at the end of April, all six children plus their mother - Fritzl's 42-year- old daughter Elisabeth - have been living together in psychiatric care in a clinic at Amstetten, the town where the Fritzl home is located.

The Kurier report quoted the head teachers of the schools involved in taking the three children as saying the attention the case had attracted would be a huge problem.

However, one was quoted as saying, the schools were "well prepared" to take the three - two girls and a boy.

The report said the children's wish to return to school came as no surprise, given that another of the children, the 15-year-old daughter Fritzl fathered with Elisabeth, had attended a private school in the area despite the heavy presence of paparazzi, and had passed her leaving certificate exam with good grades.

Fritzl is expected to face trial on 3,000 counts of rape plus homicide through failing to supply due help - a case relating to a seventh child who died in the cellar.

He has admitted holding Elisabeth prisoner for 24 years in the cellar, which he fitted with elaborate security systems.

The Kurier report said Elisabeth continued to refuse to be examined by a psychiatirst - a factor which the trial prosecution would stress in presenting the gravity of the crimes. (dpa)