This is stipulated in the draft of the new methodology for financing kindergartens, which the Ministry of Education and Research has put up for public discussion. Among the criteria for calculations: mode of operation, qualification categories of teaching staff, usable space, number of children by age categories, presence of children with special educational needs, historical administrative costs, and others.
Taking into account all these factors forms a theoretical calculation base, which will then be compared with the actual budget of the institution. As a result, the kindergarten will be categorized as either underfunded if the current budget is below the theoretical level, or overfunded in the opposite case. The Ministry claims that no institution will receive less than the guaranteed minimum level.
How much money a kindergarten will receive per year will be calculated based on the amount that the institution received as of September 1 of the previous year from the local budget. It will be multiplied by a certain percentage of growth, plus additional funds, if it is necessary to equalize the budget, for example, if the kindergarten has a lot of children, but last year it received little money.
An Intervention Fund is also being created to provide additional funding for institutions in the amount of 0.5% of the total spending limit for preschool education. Priority will be given to institutions that have not undergone major repairs in the last 10 years, as well as those in which the design capacity (number of places) is used by at least 60%.
The methodology was tested in 2025 in Cahul, Novo Aneni, Nisporeni and Floresti districts. The ministry claims that kindergartens in the four localities of these districts received an increase in funding ranging from 32% to 45%. The formula will be applied at the national level from 2026.
The need to introduce a new calculation formula was due to the lack of a unified, transparent and fair mechanism for distributing financial resources between kindergartens, which resulted in significant regional “scissors”.
In its arguments, the ministry cited data on the total budget of kindergartens in 2023, which amounted to about 5.3 billion lei. The average annual budget per child amounted to 42.3 thousand lei, but with a serious regional disparity. For example, 35 thousand lei in the capital and over 56 thousand lei in Dubasari.
