1. The policy of the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) regarding circulars and circular minutes was announced in Circulars 0026/96 of 14 March 1996 and 0036/99 of 6 April 1999.

2. In terms of the provisions of the above-mentioned policy, circulars must be sent out with the necessary discretion and must serve only to inform offices, institutions and personnel of matters of great importance to the WCED (i.e. policy matters that may not be amended or ignored arbitrarily). This means that they must not be used for general and routine correspondence.

3. To ensure the authority and credibility of circulars, all WCED circulars initiated by the various directorates must be signed by a chief director or a person on a higher level than chief director. Such person therefore accepts responsibility for that particular circular.

4. Circulars are increasingly sent out without the necessary discretion and for the wrong reasons. Last year (2003) 228 circulars were sent out. Some of these circulars conveyed information which should rather have been sent out in a circular minute. As the term circular minute may possibly be confused with circular, circular minute has been changed to minute with immediate effect.

5. Please bring the contents of this circular to the attention of all concerned.

6. Any enquiries regarding the contents of this circular may be directed to :
Ms M.E. Erasmus	:	tel.  (021)  467-2765
Ms M.M. Fick	:	tel.  (021)  467-2758


SIGNED: C.J. FOURIE
HEAD: EDUCATION
DATE: 2004:01:05