Identifying the challenges and problems of agricultural higher education using grounded theory

The agricultural higher education system and its institutions have a serious mission for the sustainable development of this sector, considering the vital and pivotal position of the agricultural sector in food security, job creation, environmental protection and rural development. Higher education in agriculture, like other sectors of higher education, faces problems and obstacle. The aim of this study was to identify the challenges and problems in higher agricultural education. The aim of this study was to identify the challenges and problems in higher agricultural education. The approach of this research is qualitative and based on the method of basic theory or data base, in which to collect the required information from a semi-structured interview with 32 academic experts, graduates, agricultural entrepreneurs and jihad managers.Agriculture has been used in Zanjan province. By analyzing the text of the interviews, 335 conceptual statements related to the purpose of the research were extracted during open coding. These concepts, in axial coding, in the form of 82 subcategories during axial coding and then into 7 general categories during selective coding. According to this category, the most important obstacles and problems of agricultural higher education include educational-research, structural, economic, individual-skill, cultural-social, administrative-organizational and infrastructural barriers.