North Korea has ordered its top provincial, city and county party officials to personally lead party school study in 2026. The move tightens Kim Jong Un’s grip on how the Workers’ Party of Korea trains and retrains its officials.
The party’s central leadership sent the directive to provincial party committees on Oct. 2, a source in South Hamgyong province told Daily NK on Monday. It told chief secretaries at every level to take a direct role in guiding party school study.
Chief secretaries head the party committee in each region and usually outrank local government officials in real power. Party schools are training institutes where the ruling party educates local officials and sends cadres back for ideological retraining.
On paper, the provincial party chief secretary heads each provincial party school as its principal. The same arrangement applies in cities, counties and districts, where the local chief secretary leads the school. In practice, however, many chief secretaries have had little to do with the schools they nominally run.
“The chief secretaries are principals in name only, and most stay out of school affairs,” the source said. “The order’s main point is that chief secretaries should do their part in carrying out Kim Jong Un’s Five Major Party-Building Lines for the New Era.”
Kim has promoted the five lines as his core party-building doctrine since the Eighth Party Congress in 2021. They cover political, organizational, ideological, disciplinary and work-style development, and state media treats them as a blueprint.
Party school study shifts from memorization to practical plans
Intensive study sessions began Oct. 2 at city and county party schools across South Hamgyong province. The schools planned quiz contests and debates on the five lines ahead of the Oct. 10 party foundation day. That date marked the 81st anniversary of the founding of the Workers’ Party of Korea.
Top performers will advance to provincewide quiz contests at the provincial party schools later this month. Each provincial party chief secretary will oversee the event personally, in line with the central party’s order.
The directive also changes what students must do with their lessons. Rather than simply memorizing material and reciting answers, they must work out how to apply it to their own jobs.
“Officials stress that students must lead the way in greeting party foundation day with political enthusiasm,” the source said. “After learning the material, they must draw up work plans for their own roles and explain in three to five minutes how they will carry them out.”
Many students, however, reportedly feel at a loss over the new demand. They must pinpoint real workplace problems and propose solutions, even though many have not yet mastered the study material.
“Plenty of the officials sent to city and county party schools for retraining never study regularly,” the source said. “They don’t even know the textbooks, so how can they present work plans that fit conditions on the ground?”
Some North Korean officials suspect the order has more to do with discipline than education, according to the source. They believe the leadership wants chief secretaries to supervise retraining cadres directly because those officials study so poorly.
The push comes as Kim presses ahead with a sweeping overhaul of officials launched at the Ninth Party Congress this year. Provincial party committees have since held emergency training sessions and demanded that local cadres prove their competence.
Kim set the tone in a June 1 speech marking the 80th anniversary of the Central Cadres School in Pyongyang. It is the party’s top school for senior officials and traces its roots to the 1946 Central Party School.
In the speech, Kim called on party schools to raise their teaching standards and learning environment to the highest level. He said they should produce genuine party workers devoted to carrying out the party’s leadership, not graduates who merely recite the five lines.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
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