An Examination of Employment Status, Employment Ability, and Job Success among Vocational and Technical Education Graduates in Agriculture Sector

The overall purpose of this study was identifying the effective educational factors on graduates job ability and job success in agricultural sector. The population consisted vocational and technical higher education graduates (N= 420) at the vocational and technical higher education institutes in the North Western Provinces in Iran. A descriptive – correlational method was chosen for this study. Independent variables of this research consisted of educational factors (educational management, equipment of institutes, teacher and trainer characteristics, teaching methods and educational contents), personal characteristics and public financial supports. In this study dependent variable consisted job ability and job success. The questionnaire was developed to collect data that was derived from several previous studies. Results showed that 54.7% of respondents were from free quota and 45.35% of them were from employed quota. Majority of employed quota respondent (93.1%) employed in public agricultural sector. Approximately forty one percent (41.4%) of free quota graduates were unemployed, while limited number of free quota graduates (11.4%) were employed full time, and about thirty two percent (32.4 %) of free quota graduates were employed part time. According to the study findings, there were a significant positive relationship between fundamental facilities and equipments, teaching methods (for practical course credits and for theory course credits), teaching ability of educators and trainers, educational content (knowledge and attitude aspects) with free quota graduates, job ability. Also there were a significant positive relationship between scientific ability of faculties, educational content (knowledge, attitude and skill aspects) with job success.