Schools can hire secretaries and accountants again: Parliament widens the exemption from the hiring freeze

A state school left without a secretary or without an accountant could not, since the summer of 2025, advertise the post. Law no. 133/2026, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 574 of 13 July 2026, lifts the freeze for auxiliary teaching and administrative staff as well, not only for teachers. It is the second breach this year in the general hiring restriction introduced by Law no. 141/2025, after the one through which healthcare units were explicitly exempted.

Formally, the law approves Government Emergency Ordinance no. 28/2026, published on 20 April 2026. In practice, Parliament used the approval law to add a series of measures the Government had not proposed, above all in higher education.

A comparison with the original text of the ordinance shows exactly how much was added. Article II of the ordinance amended a single paragraph of Higher Education Law no. 199/2023. In the form approved by Parliament, the same article amends six different provisions of the same law.

What it changes in practice

Non-teaching staff in schools step out from under the hiring ban. The text approved by Parliament provides that the restriction does not apply to the filling, by competition or examination, of teaching posts, of posts for auxiliary teaching staff and administrative staff in state pre-university education, of posts of assistant lecturer, nor to promotions within higher education institutions. The Government ordinance covered only teaching posts, posts of assistant lecturer and promotions, and the posts could be filled by competition alone.

Universities can move the money left unspent. By way of derogation from Public Finance Law no. 500/2002, state higher education institutions are authorised to reallocate the budget appropriations from the balance of core funding, the amounts left unspent and carried over from previous years and the amounts remaining from completed investments, towards new or ongoing investment projects, financial assets, the repayment of investment loans and expenditure classified under the heading „Alte cheltuieli” (other expenditure).

The money for scholarships and halls of residence is no longer lost at the end of the year. The amounts left in the balance for student transport concessions, for subsidies for halls of residence and canteens and for scholarships not collected or not allocated may be used in the following years for scholarships, for the infrastructure of halls of residence and canteens and for career counselling and guidance centres.

Doctoral supervisors from abroad enter the system more easily. Specialists holding that status at institutions outside the country acquire it in Romania through recognition and through the issuing of the certificate recognising the habilitation by the IOSUD, the institution that runs doctoral studies, on the basis of its own methodologies, which may also lay down the national minimum standards.

The cap on doctoral students per supervisor is postponed until 2030. Article 70(2) of Law no. 199/2023 enters into force only from the 2030-2031 academic year. Until then, the university senate decides how many doctoral students one supervisor may guide at the same time.

Hiring on research projects escapes selection. By way of derogation from Framework Law no. 153/2017 on the remuneration of staff paid from public funds, hiring for research projects in education and vocational training or for national, European and international projects may be done for a fixed term, with no other prior formalities and with no selection process, both for the staff named in the project team and for the university’s own staff. For its own staff, the hiring is done by decision of the rector, under an individual employment contract, without affecting the basic teaching load.

Payment for research can no longer be challenged as double remuneration. A new article, Article 212^1, provides that research activities under contracts, whether public or private, are remunerated from the budget of those contracts, that the remuneration is compatible with fulfilling the university teaching load and does not depend on the work being carried out outside working hours, that teaching and research may be carried out concurrently, including within the same time slot, and that this payment does not amount to double remuneration.

Schools run by universities receive standard-cost funding. Pre-university education units provisionally authorised or accredited, set up within or under state universities, receive funding through transfers from the state budget, via the budget of the Ministry of Education and Research, on the basis of the standard cost per ante-preschool child, preschool child or pupil, included in the complementary contract concluded with the university.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

To see what Parliament did, the text has to be read alongside the ordinance it approves. Emergency Ordinance no. 28/2026, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 310 of 20 April 2026, had four articles. Article I amended Pre-University Education Law no. 198/2023 in four points, Article II amended a single paragraph of Higher Education Law no. 199/2023, Article III introduced the exemption from the hiring restriction, and Article IV set up the Romanian Corps for Education Abroad.

The first change is the most visible one for schools. In the ordinance, the exemption from Article XXII of Law no. 141/2025 referred to „the filling by competition of teaching posts in state pre-university education, of posts of assistant lecturer, nor to promotions”. Parliament added two things: the words „or examination”, which also cover procedures that are not competitions in the strict sense, and the category of posts for auxiliary teaching staff and administrative staff. In practice, this means that a school can advertise the post of secretary, accountant, administrator, librarian or laboratory technician, which it could not do before.

The second change is a matter of scale. Article II of the ordinance had a single point, the amendment of Article 122(2) of Law no. 199/2023, on students from civilian institutions trained for the needs of Defence and the Interior. Parliament rewrote the entire article and ended up with six points: the reallocation of budget appropriations, the recognition of doctoral supervisors from abroad, the original text on students, hiring on research projects, the new article on the remuneration of research and the postponement of the cap on doctoral students. Five of the six were nowhere in the ordinance.

The third change is the addition, in Article I, of a new point, point 2^1, amending Article 139(4) of Law no. 198/2023, on the funding of schools run by state universities. That one was not in the ordinance either.

Article IV, the one setting up the Romanian Corps for Education Abroad, remains unchanged, in the form it had in the ordinance.

Advantages and disadvantages

Practical advice

Frequently asked questions

Editorial analysis