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

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

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

The filling of vacant places, after the re-enrollment process is completed, will generally be done in descending order of age group, as follows: large group (5-year-old children), middle group (4-year-old children), and small group (3-year-old children). Based on Government Decision no. 1.252/2012 and within the available places, children aged between 2 and 3 can also be enrolled in the small group.

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

The general tie-breaking criteria are as follows:

• the existence of a document proving that a child is an orphan of both parents (the situation of the child coming from a children’s home/foster center/foster care is assimilated to the situation of the child orphaned by both parents);
• the existence of a document proving that the child is orphaned by one parent;
• the existence of a brother/sister enrolled in the respective educational institution;
• the existence of a medical certificate attesting the child’s degree of disability.

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

To ensure the transparency of the re-enrollment/enrollment process, the management of preschool educational institutions will publicly display, in a visible place, for all interested, the following information:

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

We mention that private preschool educational 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).