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 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-enrollment and enrollment will be established 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 interested public, including on its website (if any), and possibly on the websites of the school inspectorates.

The filling of available spots, 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 may also be enrolled in the small group.

If, within an educational institution, the number of enrollment applications is greater than the number of available spots, general 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 an orphan of both parents (the situation of a child coming from an orphanage/foster care/foster family is assimilated to that of an orphan of both parents);
• the existence of a document proving that the child is an orphan of one parent;
• the existence of a brother/sister enrolled in the respective educational institution;
• the existence of a medical certificate classifying the child as disabled.

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

In order to ensure the transparency of the re-enrollment/enrollment process, the managements of preschool educational institutions will visibly display, for all those interested, the following information:

• the capacity of the institution (number of children it was designed for);
• the number of spots approved through the schooling plan for the 2018-2019 school year (by age groups: small, middle, large);
• the general and the specific criteria for enrolling 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 required to visibly display information regarding their status, specifically whether they are authorized to operate provisionally or are accredited by the Agency for Quality Assurance in Pre-University Education (ARACIP).