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Supported by the Office of Vocational and Adult Education
at the U.S. Department of Education
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These are the programs that give the approximately 37 million adults who are over 16 but did not complete high school another chance to earn a diploma. They include the following:

  • General Educational Development (GED), a high school equivalency diploma that learners receive by passing a series of academic competency tests.

  • National External Diploma Program, which awards a traditional high school diploma to adults (average 37 years old) who demonstrate their abilities through simulations that parallel the tasks skilled workers are expected to be able to perform.

  • Carnegie Unit programs, which are secondary education courses designed and delivered by local school systems (and mostly delivered after regular school hours).

Browse this section for more information about these programs, including professional development materials, sample GED lesson plans, and some of the latest thinking on improving adult secondary education through partnerships.