Don’t fence me in

Agricultural courses that fit around you and your on-farm work? That’s RuralBiz.

Story Ken Eastwood  

Imagine an ag course that starts and finishes whenever you want it to. Make the course really practical, designed for non-academic types, with real assignments based on the farm or business in which you are working. Enlist only lecturers, teachers and trainers who are working in ag themselves. And then, to top it all off, receive personal help and encouragement from your own ‘guardian angel’ who will guide you through any tricky periods, including when you are late handing in assignments because you are harvesting, mustering or otherwise too busy doing the real work.

Believe it or not, this style of course has been available through RuralBiz Training for more than a decade. This organisation helps students gain diplomas, cert IVs and other qualifications in subjects such as agriculture, agronomy, horticulture, agribusiness management, and conservation and land management, through a unique model that suits many people already working on the land, or involved in agribusiness.

“The courses that we offer are the same courses as TAFE,” says RuralBiz CEO Kathy Sims. “But our focus has always been making it possible for people in remote areas to access national standards training. We’ve been online training since 2009. When we started doing it online, there was no-one else doing it. We deliberately developed courses online because our students are working on farm. Unlike most other courses, ours are designed to keep students working on farm and studying at the same time.”