Travelling up to 2,000km in a week for work is nothing unusual for Charles Darwin University's Katherine Rural Campus educators who meet with their students on some of the most isolated cattle stations on earth.
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The rural trainers use bush and stock roads - often unsealed for hundreds of kilometres - to make their way to their students so they can receive their resources and assessments and have the skills and knowledge to work on remote stations.
Once they arrive on the properties that sprawl across the vast Outback in the Northern Territory, teaching doesn't happen in a typical classroom setting but regularly in a stock-camp, fully kitted out with swags around a campfire, camp chairs and laptops covered in dust.
Since the inception of the rural workplace training program it has expanded across Northern Australia from the Queensland border, throughout the Northern Territory and into Western Australia, covering some of some of the country's largest and remote Outback cattle stations, some of which are larger than the ACT.
Courses range from a Certificate II in Agriculture and Rural Operations to a Certificate IV in Agriculture and everything in between, with the team of educators visiting up to 35 stations five times a year.
CDU TAFE Agriculture and Rural Operations Team Leader Tegan Dunn has been working on the program for seven years.
"It is not your typical teaching gig but this team has a passion for the industry and can't imagine doing anything different," she said.
While the process of travelling hundreds of kilometres to remote stations "might seem foreign", Ms Dunn said in an industry where most skills were learned on the job, and students couldn't take the time off to study, the system worked "for everyone involved".
In 2023 the program had a record number of enrolments with almost 300 students, and this year CDU's Rural Campus in Katherine is on track to exceed student numbers if weather conditions allow.
Ms Dunn, who manages a team of five trainers all who have a background in rural operations or agriculture, said each member of her all-female team brought something different to the table, with all sharing a passion for working in the industry.
"The team ensures this program continues to be offered at an outstanding level of quality and training," she said.
"(Everyone has) a different passion, from mustering cattle, to being a proficient motorbike rider or horse rider - the skills the team (members) have are as diverse as the landscape that they travel."
Trained to conduct workplace assessments, deliver practical unit activities and teach theory, each day can look different for the educators.
"The scope of skills a student needs to complete can be anywhere from putting up a fence, mustering cattle or reviewing breeding guidelines and feeding schedules," Ms Dunn said.
"This means the team can often be found on horseback and mustering cattle with the students, ensuring the animals are safe or holding up fence posts in the paddocks.
"The skills and requirements are broad, however, it keeps the industry safe and maintains a high level of quality workers for future careers in the industry."
Ms Dunn said most of the students her team worked with had "a massive background of working on stations".
"We are here to ensure they have access to the qualifications and understand the areas they are already working in or want to work towards," she said.
"It is important that they understand what the different roles on a station do as well as see how gaining the correct qualifications can support in their future careers.
"Each station is different, and I think it helps keep our training relevant, it is a very broad industry and industry needs workers who are skilled across a number of areas including animal husbandry, IT and understanding the environment."
Ms Dunn said understanding the environment also played a big part in the job, with being able to actively respond to flooding and fires "all part of the job".
