CHITWAN: Realising growing fascination of students towards vocational and technical education, the Agriculture and Forestry University (AFU) in Rampur of Chitwan district is planning to start new programmes at bachelor, master and PhD levels.

The five-year-old University is launching new programmes about animal science, veterinary science and forestry in the near future.

Registrar of the University Prof Dr Surya Kant Ghimire informed that the AFU is starting the Master of Enviornment Conservation, Master of Technology, Master of Rural Sociology and PhD programmes in Rural Sociology and Development Studies.

Likewise, the University will have programmes on Master of Agriculture Business Management, Master of Dairy Science, Master of Poultry and Bachelor in Agriculture Engineering in near future.

Of late, the AFU is running bachelor to PhD-level programmes in three streams including Agriculture, Forestry and Animal Science, Veterinary Science and Fisheris.

There are altogether 1,101 students in different programmes of the University.

According to AFU Vice-Chancellor, Prof Dr Kailash Nath Paykurel, the number of female students has also started to increase, adding that there are 341female students, which is 31 percent of the total students.

The University is facing a hard time to enroll a large number of applicants, Pyakurel said. "We are planning to grant affiliations to private colleges also to meet the demand," he informed.