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

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

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

The filling of vacant places, after the re-enrollment process is completed, will generally be done in descending order of age groups, 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 limit of available spots, 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 spots, general separation criteria and specific separation criteria will be applied, successively.

The general separation criteria are the following:

• the existence of a document proving that a child is an orphan of both parents (the situation of a child coming from an orphanage/a foster center/foster care is assimilated to the situation of a 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 for classification in a handicap degree of the child.

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

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

• the institution’s capacity (the number of children for which it was designed);
• the number of spots approved through the education plan for the 2018-2019 school year (by age groups: 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 educational institutions also have the obligation 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).