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 the level of each educational unit:

• 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-enrollments and enrollments will be set by the management of the educational unit and will be displayed, in a visible place, in each kindergarten, for the information of parents and other interested parties, including on its website (if available), and possibly on the school inspectorate websites.

Filling the available 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 available places, children aged between 2 and 3 can also be enrolled in the small group.

In the event that, in an educational unit, the number of enrollment requests exceeds 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 coming from an orphanage/a placement center/foster care is considered similar 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 unit;
• the existence of a medical certificate attesting the child’s degree of disability.

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

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

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

We mention that private preschool education units 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).