For reaching development and employment goals of developing countries such as Iran, considering entrepreneurship promotion and supporting entrepreneurs are vital. The important role of higher education in promoting more entrepreneurial attitudes and behaviors is now widely recognized. The purpose of this study was identifying barriers to entrepreneurship promotion in agricultural higher education. A descriptive-correlation survey approach was used in this study. The population consisted of agricultural graduated students in higher education institutions of Zanjan province. The questionnaire and interview were used for data collection in this study. The researcher developed the survey instrument. Validity of the instrument was established using a panel of experts. Reliability of the instrument for various questions varied from 0.82 to 0.87. Results showed that the most important barriers to entrepreneurship promotion in agricultural higher education are: Expansion of agricultural colleges regardless of the quality of scientific, lack of fitness of educational content with the job market needs, traditional teaching methods that incompatible with the interests of students and less attention to learning practical skills. By factor analysis, factors for barriers to entrepreneurship in agricultural higher education were reduced to four main factors, named as inappropriate teaching methods, inappropriate educational content and syllabus, poor educational and laboratory equipment and inappropriate evaluation system. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
