Adult High School (Ottawa) - Comparison With The Rest of Ontario

Comparison With The Rest of Ontario

The revision of the Education Act in the late 1990s by premier Mike Harris resulted in the transfer of the burden of the costs of adult education from the taxpayer to the student, resulting in far fewer adults being able to afford acquiring the Grade 12 equivalency needed for entry into college programs.

While this resulted in a decimation in the numbers of adult students all over Ontario seeking high school credit, along with a further decimation of course offerings to such students by schools in their region, Adult High School had survived and flourished to being a full-service public high school. By contrast, most adult high schools in Ontario offer little more than basic math, science and English credit courses, without even any way to diagnose, accommodate, and properly place students with learning disabilities. Ottawa-Carleton's Adult High School offers workplace-level math, English and science, art and creative writing credit courses that would be well beyond the adult school offerings most other Ontario school boards. The tuition is usually lower than taking a GED exam.