This paper re-examines the position of the Tanzanian Folk Development Colleges, a national network of adult education institutions, at a time when their long-term financial assistance by the Swedish International Development Agency has come to an end and they are being transferred from the Tanzanian Government Ministry of Community Development to the Vocational Training Department in the Ministry of Education. Two key questions are whether, under the vocational training wing of the Ministry of Education, they can continue to implement a liberal adult education programme, flexible ways of working, and a commitment to social transformation, using their sectorwide networks and links with international NGO adult education movements such as the Folk High Schools of Sweden, which have made them centres for a number of nation-wide innovations; and secondly, where they can best be located within governmental administrative and budgetary regimes.