The Ministry of National Education informs that, for the inclusion in preschool education of children aged between 3 and 6 years, the following stages will take place, successively, at the level of each educational unit:

• re-enrollment of children who attend kindergarten this school year and wish to attend again 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-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 interested public, including on its website (if available), and possibly on the school inspectorates’ websites.

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

If, in an educational unit, 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 as follows:

• the existence of a document proving that a child is orphaned of both parents (the situation of a child coming from an orphanage/a placement center/foster care is assimilated to the situation of a child orphaned of both parents);
• the existence of a document proving that the child is orphaned of one parent;
• the existence of a brother/sister enrolled in the respective educational unit;
• the existence of a medical certificate proving the child is classified as disabled.

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

To ensure the transparency of the re-enrollment/enrollment process, the management of preschool educational units will publicly display, for all interested parties, the following information:

• the institution’s capacity (number of children it was designed for);
• the number of spots approved by the school plan for the 2018-2019 school year (by age groups: small, middle, large);
• 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 units also have the obligation to publicly display information regarding their status in a visible place, namely whether they are authorized to function provisionally or are accredited by the Agency for Quality Assurance in Pre-university Education (ARACIP).