The Ministry of National Education informs that, in order to include children aged between 3 and 6 years in preschool education, the following steps will take place, successively, at the level of each educational institution:

• re-enrollment of children who already attend kindergarten this school year and wish to continue attending in the 2018-2019 school year – will begin on May 7;
• enrollment of new children will take place starting May 21.

The schedule of re-enrollments and enrollments will be set by the management of the educational institution and will be posted, in a visible place, in each kindergarten, for the information of parents and interested public, including on its website (if available), and possibly on the websites of the school inspectorates.

The available places, after the re-enrollment process is finalized, will usually be filled in descending order of the age groups, as follows: large group (children of 5 years), middle group (children of 4 years), and small group (children of 3 years). Based on Government Decision no. 1.252/2012 and within the limit of available places, children aged between 2 and 3 years can also be enrolled in the small group.

If, in an educational institution, the number of enrollment requests is greater than the number of available places, general selection criteria and specific selection criteria will be applied, successively.

The general selection criteria are as follows:

• the existence of a document proving that a child is orphaned by both parents (the situation of a child from an orphanage/a foster care center/family placement is considered the same as that of a child orphaned by both parents);
• the existence of a document proving the child is orphaned by one parent;
• the existence of a brother or sister enrolled in the respective educational institution;
• the existence of a medical certificate certifying the child's degree of disability.

The specific selection criteria (developed by each preschool educational institution, approved by its Administration Board, and endorsed by the County School Inspectorate/the Bucharest Municipality School Inspectorate by May 18) cannot be discriminatory and cannot include pre-enrollment lists. Also, the specific selection criteria will be applied only after the general criteria are exhausted.

To ensure transparency in the re-enrollment/enrollment process, the managements of preschool educational institutions will visibly post, for all interested parties, the following information:

• the institution's capacity (the number of children it was designed for);
• the number of places approved by the schooling plan for the 2018-2019 school year (by age group: small, middle, large);
• the general and specific criteria for enrolling children;
• the number of children re-enrolled/enrolled daily (during the set period) out of the total available.

We mention that private preschool education institutions are also obliged to display, in a visible place, information regarding their status, namely whether they are authorized to operate provisionally or are accredited by the Agency for Quality Assurance in Pre-university Education (ARACIP).