LAHORE: The Punjab School Education Department requires some 78,000 new classrooms to accommodate out-of-school children.

This preposition, however, has a huge financial implication as one classroom costs around Rs700,000.

The financial implication shows that there is hardly any possibility that such mammoth construction could be done, says a policy brief on `Impact ofUrbanisation on Girls Education in Punjab` launched by the United Nations Girls` Education Initiative in collaboration with the Punjab School Education Department and Unicef at a local hotel on Monday. At the event, another policy brief on %npact of climate change on the education of most excluded children in Punjab` was also launched.

Explaining the recommendationsto check the impact of urbanisation, ACE Consulting Group`s Umer Raza said another pragmatic approach could be the usage of existing resources at optimum level. He suggested the government introduce a double-shift or even triple-shift in schools to not only cater to all outof-school children but also offer them flexible school timings.

The policy brief also suggestedthat scouts and girl guides and educated youth from other youth organisations be assigned a certain number of children to teach and become school education department`s resources serving on small stipends.

It also suggested home-based education as an alternate to schooling and mainstreaming of excluded children of 16-19 years age cohort through incentivisation of teachers.-Staff Reporter