BEIJING -- A one-year program to give officials from ethnic minority groups and underdeveloped western regions exposure to the work practices of central departments began on Wednesday.

The 237 officials will attend a three-day training course on the essence of the Sixth Plenary Session of the 18th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, supply-side structural reform, the Belt and Road Initiative, and economic and social development concerning ethnic regions.

Following the course, they will be dispatched across 87 central Party and government departments and major state-owned enterprises.

The course is run by the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee, the United Front Work Department of the CPC Central Committee and the State Ethnic Affairs Commission.

Since it began in 1990, the program has seen more than 9,000 ethnic minority and western region officials assume temporary posts in central departments.