The Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party
of China (CPC) has trained more than 50,000 medium and high-ranking
officials since 1978 when China initiated its reform and opening up
policy.
All high-ranking Chinese officials, including provincial party
chiefs, governors, ministers, generals, as well as mid-ranking
officials who just take up their posts, must receive training from
this school ranging from 3 months to 3 years.
The curriculums in this institute of higher learning, also known
as the Central Party School, include not only Marxism masterpieces
and Party principles, but also Western political theory, economics,
and frontier issues of contemporary law, religion, military
affairs, science and technology.
Seminars are held to discuss practical problems they come across
during work, including how to increase farmers' income and ways of
getting investment for local development.
"It's a good experience for me to enhance my ability of public
administration through learning how to solve practical problems,"
said Mao Linsheng, vice governor of east China's Zhejiang
Province.
In the past several years, China has also sent its government
officials to study abroad, for example, about 60 government
officials have been selected each year to join in the two-month
public administration program in the Kennedy School of Government
of Harvard University since 2002.
Besides, more than 400 middle level officials from Beijing
received overseas training from 1999 to 2002; 300 officials from Guangdong Province studied in United States
and Canada from 1999 to 2003; 55 officials from Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region have been
sent to receive a fifteen month study in developed countries every
year since 2001.
The CPC Central Committee's Party School currently has about
1,300 students on campus.
The Central Party School was established in 1933 in Ruijin of Jiangxi Province. Chinese top leaders, Mao
Zedong and Hu Jintao were its presidents and China's
Vice-President Zeng Qinghong currently holds the position of
the school's president.
(Xinhua News Agency October 2, 2007)