Estimation of the required number of university graduates in the field of animal

As the main cause of development, provision of specialized workforce is known as a mission of higher education system in any countries. This issue entails scientific planning and is regarded as a base for need assessment in education. To assess the need for manpower, various methods and models have been proposed and lots of experiences have been obtained in different countries. Based on scientific experience, realities, available information as well as economic requirements, one of these methods or a combination of them is employed by researchers. Considering the nature of the activities related to livestock farming as well as the available standards by animal husbandry system in the country, the ratio density method was applied to assess the need for educated manpower, in which the ratio of the need for university-educated manpower to the number of livestock, poultry, honey bee colony and feed production capacity was considered as the basis of the estimate. The optimum ratio between the educated workforce and the production capacity was determined based on the relevant experts of the animal husbandry system. The results indicate that the required recruitment for university graduates in different relevant activities for a thirty-year period was estimated to be 44135 in livestock farming, 16336 in poultry farming, 8000 in honey bee keeping and 985 in feed production. In addition, it appeared that some 2315 graduates in animal science are required, annually, including 3.5% PhD, 26.5% in the master's, 70% in the bachelor's and associate’s levels.