Since the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in November 2012, the Party school system has been subject to several reforms. How well these reforms have been implemented in lower-level Party schools has received little attention because access is difficult to obtain. We conducted on-site investigations, interviews with cadres and surveys of trainees at a county/district-level Party school in an economically typical city and county. Our findings show that operational dilemmas lead to the perfunctory implementation of policy that is substantively deficient. These operational dilemmas are likely to be found in varying degrees in other county/district Party schools. Our finding that cadre education and training policy is implemented in a pro forma manner suggests that cadres may not be receiving the ideological education and practical training intended for them by the centre.
