The Minister of Education, Daniel David, signed the adoption of a new Ministerial Order, which concerns the approval of the Methodology for substantiating the enrollment figure in state pre-university education for the 2025-2026 school year. This new methodology, provided in the annex to the order, represents a detailed framework that will guide all institutions involved in the educational process for the next school year.
Minister of Education provided that the approved methodology includes the records of the number of pre-schoolers, preschoolers and students enrolled in private education units. The detailed document is an integral part of the issued order and will be used by the General Directorate for Management, Teaching Career and School Network in Pre-university Education, the General Directorate for Minorities and Desegregation within the Ministry of Education, the National Center for the Development of Vocational and Technical Education, school inspectorates, pre-university education units and higher education institutions that include pre-university education units.
The draft school plan will be carried out based on well-defined general criteria: legislative, economic, demographic, geographical, socioeconomic and relevance. Within the legislative criteria, compliance with articles 23 and 248 paragraph (16) of the Pre-university Education Law no. 198/2023 will be ensured, as well as the correlation of the number of positions approved by the Ministry of Education with the number of students, preschoolers and pre-schoolers, all of this in accordance with the approved budget and the standard cost per student.
The economic criterion aims to optimize the use of resources by analyzing the situation of parallel classes, ensuring the functioning of classes in urban areas with the minimum numbers established by law. Within the demographic criterion, the methodology will take into account the statistical data provided by the National Institute of Statistics regarding the evolution of the population in the 0-18 age range, population density and ethnic composition, as well as the phenomenon of internal and external migration to ensure adequate coverage of the target population.
The Minister of Education has established, in addition to these, the methodology also takes into account geographical and socioeconomic criteria, ensuring that the schooling plan reflects the real needs of local communities. It also complies with the recommendations from strategic planning documents such as the Regional Action Plan for Education (PRAI), the Local Action Plan for Education (PLAI) and the School Action Plan (PAS), which are the basis for the development of the schooling plan for technological pre-university education, including in the dual system.
The implementation of this methodology will be coordinated by the aforementioned entities, which will collaborate closely to adapt the school plans to the specifics of each educational unit. The school inspectorates, together with pre-university education units and higher education institutions, will ensure compliance with the provisions of the order and the adaptation of the plans according to the local reality.
The Minister of Education stressed the importance of respecting these criteria in order to guarantee a quality educational process, adapted to the current needs of students and preschoolers. This new methodology is based on clear and transparent criteria, which include legislative, economic, demographic, geographical, socioeconomic and relevance aspects.
The goal is to ensure a fair and efficient allocation of resources, while respecting the legislation in force and the real needs of local communities. The Ministry of Education emphasizes that respecting these criteria is essential for the modernization of the education system in Romania, ensuring a rigorous and efficient planning of the available resources.
The new methodology represents an important step towards optimizing pre-university education, contributing to the development of an educational system adapted to current and future challenges.