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

• re-enrollment of children who already attend 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 established by the management of the educational unit 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 available), and possibly on the websites of the school inspectorates.

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). According to Government Decision no. 1.252/2012 and within the available places, children aged between 2 and 3 years can also be enrolled in the small group.

If, in an educational unit, the number of enrollment applications is greater than the number of available places, 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 an orphan of both parents (the situation of the child coming from an orphanage/a placement center/family placement is assimilated to the status 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 classifying the child as having a disability.

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

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

• the capacity of the institution (number of children for which it was designed);
• the number of places approved by 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 (during the established period) from the total available.

We mention that private preschool educational units 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).