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

• Re-enrollment of children who attend kindergarten this school year and wish to attend it in the 2018-2019 school year – will begin on May 7;
• 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 unit and will be visibly posted in each kindergarten for the information of parents and the interested public, including on its website (if any), and possibly on the school inspectorates' websites.

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

If, within an educational unit, the number of enrollment requests exceeds the number of available spots, general selection criteria and specific selection criteria shall be applied, successively.

The general selection criteria are as follows:

• Existence of a document proving the child is an orphan of both parents (the situation of a child from an orphanage/a placement center/foster care is assimilated to the situation of a child orphaned of both parents);
• Existence of a document proving the child is an orphan of one parent;
• Existence of a brother or sister enrolled in the respective educational unit;
• Existence of a medical certificate for classification in a degree of disability of the child.

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

To ensure the transparency of the re-enrollment/enrollment process, the management of preschools will visibly display, for all interested parties, the following information:

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

We mention that private preschool units are also required 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).