Adult education in the Netherlands is administered under four different branches of government. Formal education or credit-granting courses come under the Ministry of Education and Science. Development of the adult as an individual in his/her social environment falls under the Ministry of Welfare, Health, and Cultural Affairs. Industry training, perceived as labor policy, comes under the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment. The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries administers apprenticeships. The Ministry of Education and Science has responsibility for providing night school courses, developing Daytime Secondary Schools for reentry women, and supervising correspondence courses. Adult education under the Ministry of Welfare, Health, and Cultural Affairs encompasses folk high schools, residential educational centers, local educational centers, and education for women. Newer developments in adult education in the Netherlands include the idea of decentralization, the Open University for Higher Education, and the cooperative efforts of the separate Ministries to offer adult education. Projects agreed upon as in need of further cooperative development and promotion are literacy, open school educational activities for cultural minorities, vocationally oriented training courses, preretirement education, and educational networks. Two basic problems of emerging new structures are decentralized versus centralized structure and financial support. (YLB)