Preliminary assessment of the second payment request of Romania

required under target #467, which is not part of this payment request. Therefore, the achievement of the target shall be assessed under the 5th payment request. The Applicants’ guidelines also mention under section 3.5 “Projects timeline" that the grants are awarded for a period of 3 years providing that all eligibility conditions are complied with by the applicants.

Eligible activities shall include:

• - pedagogical and support activities,
• - extra-curricular activities,
• - minor works and purchases of goods,
• - grants for pupils in vulnerable groups to ensure the transition from lower secondary to

upper secondary education, to complete compulsory education,

• - partnerships with NGOs for support and/or extra-curricular activities.

The Applicants’ Guidelines include all five activities in section 4.2 “eligible activities” under category 1 – subcategory 1.3 “Intervention activities", category 2 “Compensation activities" and category 3 “Digitalization of the educational process". Partnerships with NGOs are mentioned under section 4.1 “beneficiary’s eligibility” on page 13 of the guidelines. In addition, these activities are further specified under section 4.4 of the guidelines referring to “eligible activities”. The evidence provided for a sample of 60 units confirmed that the requirements of the target have been met. These requirements requested for the selected schools to receive grants to support their students for the transition from lower to upper secondary education, on the basis of 5 indicators defined in the Early Warning Mechanism in Education. Schools with higher risk of drop out were prioritized. Their proposed projects had to include activities from the list of five eligible activities, as detailed in the assessment. Schools are also responsible for monitoring students at risk of drop-out and their progress, by transferring that information into the MATE data collection system. For each

of the 60 randomly selected projects, Romania provided copies of the signed contracts between the selected schools and the respective County School Inspectorates, concluded in September – October 2022 aiming to finance activities for the support of students for the transition from lower to upper secondary educations. It also provided the relevant parts of the technical specifications of the project and their alignment with the five eligible activities, as defined in the description of the target. The sample also confirmed that each selected school and its project was on the list of selected schools under lot 1 of the grant scheme. Each contract specifies the terms and conditions for awarding the grant and contains as one of its annexes the project proposal specifying the eligible activities requested by the description of the target. The two parties of each signed contract are the grant beneficiary and the respective County School Inspectorate. Schools shall become responsible for student outcomes and for regular updates on the progress

achieved, by transferring that information into the MATE data collection system. Based on the provisions of Article 3 of the Ministerial Order No. 6000 of 30 December 2021 “for the approval of the Early Warning Mechanism in Education (MATE) and of the implementing methodology for the MATE IT tool to prevent early school leaving”, published in the Official Journal No. 1252 on 30 December 2021, all schools with secondary education classrooms must use the MATE IT tool to collect data for the identification of early school leaving risks. In addition, the ministerial order provides in its annexes two instruments: i) a screening of the education process at the class level through the School Success Assessment Tool (SASAT) questionnaire, and ii) the MATE Observation Sheets, which provides for the first screening of the students at risk of dropout. The results are registered in the IT tool according to the procedures in place. Article 2 and Article 5 of the Annex to the Ministerial Order No. 6457 of 22 December 2022 “for the approval of the methodology for the management of the MATE tool in the Romanian Integrated Education

Information System (SIIIR) for the pre-educational system’s activities”, published in the Official

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