Preliminary assessment of the second payment request of Romania

funding. The Romanian authorities approved a list of 3235 schools, which were included in the National programme to reduce early school leaving. The list was published on the Ministry of Education’s website in December 2021. From this list, 1726 schools were considered eligible to receive grants under lot 1 of this investment as schools with medium and high risk of dropouts. Following the publication of the Applicants’ guidelines, which was part of milestone 464 already assessed under the positively assessed first payment request, eligible schools were invited to submit their project proposals. After finalizing the evaluation of the projects submitted, a list of 1319 selected schools and projects was approved by the Ministerial Order No. 3496 of 30 March 2022 “for the approval of the list of schools receiving grants – lot 1 – under the National programme to reduce early school leaving grant scheme, financed from the Romanian recovery and resilience plan”. After the standard appeal procedure that allows beneficiaries to challenge the results of the

selection procedure, the list of selected schools was extended to 1415 schools, as approved by the Ministerial Order No. 3580 of 15 April 2022 “for amending and complementing the Ministerial Order No. 3496/2022 for the approval of the list of schools receiving grants – lot 1 – under the National programme to reduce early school leaving grant scheme, financed from the Romanian recovery and resilience plan”. Based on the clarifications provided by the Note No. 797/DGIPRE of 03 October 2022 “related to: - educational establishments which have abandoned funding for approved projects, and change in the legal status of schools applying for funding approved under the Grants Scheme National Programme for Reduction School drop-out (PNRAS) – lot 1”, six of the selected schools did not sign any financing contract due to changes in their legal status, hence the final list of grants awarded includes 1409 schools under lot 1, ranking them based on their scoring on the five indicators defined in the Early Warning Mechanism in Education and their high or medium priority of intervention.

The five indicators and their calculation methodology were defined in the Early Warning Mechanism in Education (MATE), approved by the Ministerial Order No. 6000 of 30 December2021, published in the Official Journal No. 1252 on 30 December 2021 and their detaining was included in the assessment of milestone 464 of the first approved payment request for Romania. Based on the scoring obtained by using the MATE methodology, schools are considered to be of high risk, if they scored between 3.5 and 5, and of medium risk, if they scored between 2.5 and 3.5. 835 high-priority educational units, which needed immediate intervention, were considered to be those schools that received a total score between 3,5 and 5 and thus, were prioritised for funding under the first lot of grants awarded. After exhausting the list of high-priority schools receiving grants, the list was completed with educational establishments with medium priority of intervention. This is evidenced in the list of 1409 contracts signed with all beneficiaries, which includes the respective scoring for each of the five indicators defined in the Early Warning

Mechanism in Education and their high or medium priority of intervention. The five indicators and the list of eligible schools are also mentioned in the Applicants’ guidelines (page 7 - 8). The Applicants’ guideline was approved by the Ministerial Order No. 3319 of 1 March 2022 and amended by Ministerial Order No. 3326 of 3 March 2022. Furthermore, in line with the description of the measure, the investment shall be carried out with the following steps: allocation of 3-year grants in 2 lots throughout 2022 and 2023 to a minimum of 2 500 schools. The allocation shall be based on a short-listing of institutions at risk of drop-out developed by the Ministry of Education and shall be completed by 30 June 2023. The calendar including the two calls for applications is mentioned on page 11 of the Applicants’ guidelines. Following the call for applications launched on 2 March 2022, a list of 1409 schools receiving grants under lot 1 was approved, as provided by the Romanian authorities. For lot 2, the call for applications has been launched in March 2023. The minimum of 2500 schools is the goal

81