Treatment of some issues in a new Dutch plan for foreign language instruction is compared to treatment of similar issues in the United States. The Dutch plan assumes that centralized, national planning is essential, with the various segments of the foreign language instructional system being assigned interlocking roles and responsibilities. American education has resisted this degree of national policy planning for language instruction. The Dutch plan also gives a great deal of attention to decisions about which languages will be required or offered in different institution types, and to differentiating between required and optional languages. Unlike the American system, which encourages proliferation, the Dutch decision has been to limit and make consistent the languages taught at various levels. In the Dutch plan, the level at which each language should be taught, how long it is taught, and to what students is specified, a policy option not taken in the United States. In addition, while the Dutch plan incorporates a well-developed occupation-oriented language instruction system in the same framework as in the formal school system, in the United States, adult/occupational language training is planned separately. Testing standards and procedures are centralized in the Netherlands and not in the United States. (MSE)