North Korean leader Kim Jong Un recently inspected a sprawling new campus for the Central Cadres Training School of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), according to state media on Sunday, a visit that appears aimed at ensuring future officials’ loyalty to his family’s rule.

Construction is reportedly set to finish in time for a large opening ceremony “in mid-May” coinciding with the school’s 78th founding anniversary.

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that classrooms, offices, gyms and other amenities for students cover 13.3 hectares (32 acres) of floorspace, making it one of the largest universities in the country.

NK News analysis of state media photos and satellite imagery shows the campus was built rapidly in under a year — KCNA said builders “worked 24/7” — on the grounds of an elite airbase in eastern Pyongyang that was demolished just ahead of the start of construction in March 2023. 

KCNA reported that Kim “personally chose the site of construction” and guided the process in order to turn the school “into a top-notch university.”

The new university will serve to “train the reserve cadres of the Party and thoroughly arm them with the revolutionary idea of Kim Jong Un and the Party-building line in the new era.”

The institution’s revival comes after Kim disbanded its leadership due to corruption in 2020.

SUCCESSION AND ‘PURE LOYALTY’ 

Sunday’s report on Kim’s visit to the new location’s construction site was brief, but a lengthy state media report on his high-profile visit to the school’s former location in Oct. 2022 offers clues about the importance of the project.

When touring the new campus last week, Kim reportedly said its construction “is an issue related to the long-term development of our Party for training the successors to the WPK and furthermore an important issue linked to the succession of the revolution.”

This likely refers to a priority on ensuring his own successor’s spot at the helm of the party and country. 

Kim made the issue of hereditary succession a major focus of his “historic commemorative lecture” delivered during his 2022 visit, just one month before publicly revealing his daughter for the first time. Many experts believe the DPRK leader has already chosen the young girl, thought to be named Kim Ju Ae, as his successor.

Kim spoke at length in the speech about improving the party’s power and control over society during his first 10 years in power.

These efforts to strengthen party structures will prevent the “confusion” that can arise when there is succession in the “leadership of a socialist ruling party,” he said.

The DPRK ruler added that maintaining a “monolithic ideology and leadership” requires active measures, stating that improving party cadre education will help avoid a situation in which his own “exploits are distorted and destroyed” as after leaders died in other socialist countries.

All party members must be made to “cherish faith [in the party] and maintain pure loyalty.”

Widespread problems of “abuses of power, bureaucratism, irregularities and corruption” were plaguing the party, he added, leading him to “declare a war to wipe out” these problems.

This was a reference to his Feb. 2020 decision to “disband the party committee of the Party cadre training base, which was involved in the practices of corruption and irregularities.” 

As a result, the school was subsequently reorganized and renamed from the Kim Il Sung Higher Party School (김일성고급당학교) to the current Central Cadres Training School of the WPK (조선로동당 중앙간부학교). It was called the Central Party School (중앙당학교) when it was established on June 1, 1946.

BETTER CAMPUS, MORE MEMBERS, MORE POWER

Though Kim didn’t directly mention plans to build a new campus in 2022, he said “increasing the Party membership and the management of its ranks” were top priorities, pointing to a need for more classroom space and additional education programs at a larger campus.

“The most difficult problem in strengthening our Party and implementing its fighting program at present is the shortage of cadres who are ready to carry it out,” Kim reportedly declared.

It’s still unclear why Kim chose to raze the airbase — which was only built in 2015 — to make room for the new campus, but it could be due to a desire to give the institution a nice spot in a prestigious area next to the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, where the country’s former leaders lie in state.

It could also be to maintain a spot on the Taedong River amid a lack of undeveloped riverside land, as the school’s current location is on the banks next to the Juche Tower and across from Kim Il Sung Square. 

KCNA on Sunday said plans for the new school have been in the works since the Jan. 2021 party congress and that plans were discussed at party plenums in Feb. and Dec. 2021, Dec. 2022 and Dec. 2023.

According to Kim’s 2022 speech, the next generation of party members should be exposed to modern teaching methods, including the use of “VR technology and augmented reality technology.” 

He also said during his undated visit to the new campus in recent days that students would enjoy modern “educational conditions and environment,” as Kim likely sees improving their living and study conditions as key to helping transform them into “genuine revolutionaries” and true believers in party ideology.

It is unclear what will happen to the school’s current campus, but it could shift to focus more on training teachers for the new campus after Kim said in 2022 that the school “should improve the quality” of teachers.

Edited by Alannah Hill