Secondary ed prepares you for work with a specific age group in a school setting. That might be just the thing for you.

Adult ed is more of a blanket term that covers a wider range of ages (usually 17 or so and up) and settings (human resources/corporate training, post-secondary ed, literacy and family literacy, GED, etc.). Some of these subfields tend to have mostly part-time positions available, and specialized training or experience is expected.

Instead of trying to objectively judge the number of opportunities in each field, you might want to try them both out a little to see where your heart is. (Volunteer to tutor or otherwise work with both populations.) After all, you will be in the workforce long enough to see the opportunities in each field change again and again. You have to like what you’re doing in order to last.

Best of luck from an adult educator. 🙂