Agricultural Graduates Job Empowerment and its Barriers

The purpose of this study was to investigate the barriers to job empowerment of Zanjan University agriculture graduates. Statistical population of the study consisted of 201 graduates from that 101 graduates were randomly selected. Validity of the questionnaire was approved by a panel of academic experts. Cronbach alpha coefficients used to measure the research instrument reliability (α=0. 87). Results showed that the average score of occupational empowerment of respondents was 7. 04 out of 20 that indicating their weak stance. Using exploratory factor analysis، barriers to empowering agricultural graduates were classified in to eight factors including: non-functional courses، cultural and attitudinal barriers، quantitative development of agricultural higher education with poor industrial relations، content not appropriate to respond the needs of agricultural sector، inappropriate evaluation and the lack of government support and poor student self-reliance. Close to 70% of the total variance of barriers to empowering agricultural graduates was explained by these eight factors.