An adult high school or adult school is a high school facility designed for adult education. It is intended for adults who have not completed high school to continue their education. Some adult high schools offer child care, special integration programs for immigrants and refugees, career and other programs and services geared toward the special needs of adult students. Some adult high schools may also offer general interest programs such as computer skills or other continuing education courses.
A few cities in the United States and Canada have dedicated adult high school facilities. In most other cities, students age out of the system at 19 or 20 leaving them no other option than getting their GED or attend an online high school program. This is a problem for students who still need many classes to gain the skills they need to pass a GED test. This problem is compounded for the United States' growing foreign born population who are not familiar with the American school systems and are still learning English, especially if they come into the United States in their teens and are expected to catch up with their American peers by the time they reach the age of 19 or 20.
High school is a term used in parts of the English-speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education, but not always the highest years of basic education, which can be called a "secondary school" or "secondary college" or other terms, depending on the nation or region (see below: Usage by country). The phrase "high school" is often incorporated into the name of the related institutions.
The term (as "high school") originated in Scotland, with the world's oldest being Edinburgh's Royal High School from 1505. The Royal High School was used as a model for the first public high school in the United States, the English High School founded in Boston, Massachusetts in 1821. The precise stage of schooling provided by a high school differs from country to country, and may vary within the same jurisdiction. In all of New Zealand and Malaysia along with parts of Australia, Bangladesh and Canada, high school is synonymous with secondary school, and encompasses the entire secondary stage of education.