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 institution:

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

The schedule for re-enrollments and enrollments 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 interested public, including on its website (if available), and possibly on the websites of school inspectorates.

The allocation of available spots, after the re-enrollment process is completed, will generally be done in descending order of age groups, as follows: large group (children aged 5), middle group (children aged 4), and small group (children aged 3). On the basis of Government Decision no. 1.252/2012 and within the limit of available places, children aged between 2 and 3 years may 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 selection criteria and specific selection criteria will be applied, successively.

The general selection criteria are the following:

• the existence of a document proving that a child is orphaned by both parents (the situation of a child coming from an orphanage/a foster care center/family foster care is assimilated to the situation of a child orphaned by both parents);
• the existence of a document proving that he/she is orphaned by one parent;
• the existence of a brother or sister enrolled in the respective educational institution;
• the existence of a medical certificate attesting the child's degree of disability.

The specific selection criteria (elaborated by each preschool educational institution, approved by its Board of Administration and endorsed by the County School Inspectorate/of Bucharest until May 18) cannot be discriminatory and cannot include pre-enrollment lists. Also, the 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 preschool educational institutions will publicly display, in a visible place, for all interested parties, the following information:

• the capacity of the institution (the number of children for which it was designed);
• the number of approved spots according to the schooling 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 (within 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, i.e. whether they are authorized to operate provisionally or are accredited by the Agency for Quality Assurance in Pre-university Education (ARACIP).