In brief

  • The Ministry of Education and Research has approved the school syllabus for the subject „NATO in the contemporary world”, an elective for grade X, one hour a week, over one school year.
  • The subject enters the national offer of electives, but it does not reach any school automatically: the board of administration of the upper secondary school decides whether to put it in the offer, after consulting pupils and parents, and the pupil then chooses it or not.
  • The syllabus has 4 general competences, 12 specific competences and 7 content areas, from the Cold War and article 5 through to Romania’s accession in 2004 and the war in Ukraine. It applies from the 2026-2027 school year.
Act: Order of the Minister of Education and Research no. 4.353/2026
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) no. 735 of 1 September 2026
In force from: 1 September 2026

Grade X pupils can study NATO as a subject in its own right, one hour a week, if their school puts it in the offer and if they choose it. Order of the Minister of Education and Research no. 4.353/2026, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 735 of 1 September 2026, approves the school syllabus for the subject „NATO in the contemporary world”. It comes in the series of school syllabuses the ministry has published in recent months, after the elective „The GIS lesson” for grades IX to XII and after the Romanian language syllabus for schools and classes taught in Hungarian.

The word that matters in the title of the act is „elective”. The subject forms part of the pupil-chosen curriculum from the school’s offer, the category in which the pupil picks from among the subjects the school proposes. „National offer” means only that the syllabus was written and approved centrally, so that any upper secondary school in the country can take it ready-made, without having to build the content itself and without going through a drafting procedure of its own. It does not mean that the subject is taught in every school, nor that any pupil is obliged to follow it.

The order has four articles and one annex. Article 1 approves the syllabus, article 2 says that it applies from the 2026-2027 school year, article 3 places its implementation with the Directorate-General for Equity and Performance in Pre-University Education, the National Centre for Curriculum and Assessment, the school inspectorates and the schools themselves, and article 4 provides for publication in the Official Gazette of Romania. The order was signed on 7 July 2026 by Minister Mihai Dimian and rests on approval report no. 1.435 of 30 June 2026. The syllabus occupies pages 10-16 of that edition of the Official Gazette of Romania. Another order of the ministry approved the network of practice schools for 2026-2027.

What it changes in practice

The second curriculum act signed the same day concerns the timetable rather than the subject: German upper secondary sections get a framework timetable of their own, 33 to 35 hours a week.

A national syllabus appears that schools can take over as it stands. Until this order, an upper secondary school that wanted to offer pupils an elective on NATO had to write its own syllabus, submit it for the opinion of the curriculum committee and for the endorsement of the school inspectorate, and then for the approval of the board of administration, as article 88 paragraph (11) of the Pre-University Education Law no. 198/2023 requires. Now the text exists, approved by order of the minister, and the school takes it ready-made.

It settles what is actually taught. The syllabus has seven content areas: the Cold War and the founding of NATO; the organisation of NATO; NATO and a reunited Europe; the development of the strategic concepts of the North Atlantic Alliance; NATO’s relations with other international institutions and organisations; collective defence and NATO’s new role; Romania and NATO. Within them there are 22 numbered topics and four case studies: NATO and the Warsaw Pact, the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo. The topics run from the North Atlantic Treaty of 4 April 1949 and the meaning of article 5, to the enlargement after 1989 and the Partnership for Peace, to NATO after 11 September 2001, to cyber security and resilience, to NATO in the context of the war in Ukraine, and to Romania’s road to accession in 2004, with its strategic role in the Black Sea region.

The time budget is fixed: one hour a week, one school year. The explanatory note says plainly that the subject is designed for 1 hour a week, over one school year, in grade X. The 2026-2027 school year has 36 teaching weeks, under Order of the Minister of Education and Research no. 3.194/2026, so around 36 hours, from which the weeks taken up by the „School differently” and „Green week” programmes have to be subtracted.

The subject is marked, but it is not examined. The syllabus contains a chapter of assessment benchmarks, with formative and summative assessment, with outputs such as argued texts, oral presentations, thematic portfolios and digital materials, and with criteria communicated to pupils. The order contains no derogation from the ordinary marking rules, so the subject goes into the register like any other on the pupil’s timetable. It does not reach the baccalaureate: the papers of the examination are listed exhaustively in article 102 paragraph (4) of Law no. 198/2023, and an elective from the school’s offer is not among them.

Military upper secondary schools and colleges are named expressly. The explanatory note says that the subject „is also recommended for study in military upper secondary schools and colleges”. It is the only category of school named as such in the whole text of the syllabus.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

Until now, NATO was studied in Romania only as a topic inside the subject History in the common core, that is, in the material compulsory for all pupils. The new syllabus states expressly that it builds on what History has already taught without duplicating it, and that it adds what, in the authors’ view, remains „insufficiently developed in the current syllabuses”: the analysis of the Alliance’s strategic documents, the development of security concepts after 1949 and above all after 2000, NATO’s relations with other international organisations, the Alliance’s missions and Romania’s place in the Euro-Atlantic area.

The way the offer of electives is built has changed as well. The Pre-University Education Law no. 198/2023 replaced the old school-decided curriculum with the pupil-chosen curriculum from the school’s offer, a category in which the choice belongs to the pupil, not to the school, and in which syllabuses may be drawn up nationally, regionally, locally or in the school itself. The ministry has begun to fill the national part of that category: Order no. 3.595/2025 approved, in a single act, seven elective syllabuses for primary and lower secondary education, and Order no. 3.913/2026 approved the elective „The GIS lesson” for grades IX to XII. „NATO in the contemporary world” is the next piece in that catalogue.

The difference from the GIS elective is one of scope. That one can be chosen in any of grades IX to XII and names the track and the profiles it addresses. This one is written for a single grade, the tenth, and names neither the track nor the profile.

Advantages and disadvantages

What it improves

  • A school that wanted this elective no longer has to write a syllabus of its own and go through the drafting procedure, but takes over a text already approved by order of the minister.
  • The syllabus is written around competences, not lessons, and each of the 12 specific competences comes with four examples of learning activities and with one worked example broken into stages, which spares the teacher part of the planning.
  • Checking information circulating in public against official sources appears as a recurring learning activity, and disinformation is a content topic, not merely a phrase in the explanatory note.
  • The case studies are concrete and verifiable, from the Warsaw Pact to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and the 2008 Bucharest summit, so the teacher has documents to work with.
  • The bibliography and webography point to open sources, among them the official NATO website, the Romanian Diplomatic Institute and the multimedia archive of the Ministry of National Defence.

What remains a problem

  • The syllabus was published on 1 September 2026, six days before classes start, even though a school builds its offer of electives many months in advance.
  • The order does not say which track and which profile the subject addresses, and the legal basis it rests on does not cover the technological track.
  • In grade X, in the 2026-2027 school year, the old framework curriculum remains in force, and it does not contain the category „pupil-chosen curriculum from the school’s offer”.
  • The volume of content is large for one hour a week: 26 units to teach, several of which call for learning outputs produced in three or four stages.
  • No provision says who may teach the subject, so the staffing is left to each school’s judgement.

Practical advice

  1. If you are a parent and the subject interests you, ask at the school office or the form teacher whether the school has included it in the offer of electives for grade X. Without that decision of the board of administration, the syllabus produces no effect in that school.
  2. Ask to see the school’s full offer of electives, not only the subject you were interested in. The board of administration settles the pupil-chosen curriculum after consulting pupils and parents and on the basis of the resources available, under article 86 paragraph (5) of Law no. 198/2023.
  3. Check whether the school has a history teacher available for the extra hour. The syllabus imposes no condition as to specialisation, and without a free teaching post the offer stays on paper.
  4. If the subject is taught, expect marks. The syllabus calls for formative and summative assessment, with concrete outputs: argued texts, oral presentations, graphic organisers, portfolios, infographics, podcasts.
  5. Do not count on it for the baccalaureate. The subject is not among the papers of the examination and cannot be chosen as an optional paper.
  6. Read the syllabus before deciding. It runs to seven pages in Official Gazette of Romania no. 735 of 1 September 2026, at pages 10-16, and the table of contents shows in five minutes whether the topics interest the pupil.
  7. If the choice strikes you as rushed, ask the board of administration to reopen the consultation. The law requires it to consult pupils and parents, and the decision can be revisited before the timetable is fixed.
  8. If you are a teacher and want to propose the subject, follow the route set out in the law: the specialist opinion of the curriculum committee, the endorsement of the county directorate for pre-university education, the approval of the board of administration.

Frequently asked questions

Does NATO become a compulsory subject in upper secondary school?
No. It is an elective, part of the pupil-chosen curriculum from the school’s offer. Nobody is obliged to study it, and no school is obliged to put it in the offer.
How many hours a week does it have?
One hour a week, over one school year, in grade X. In the 2026-2027 school year that means around 34 actual hours, once the weeks taken up by the „School differently” and „Green week” programmes are subtracted from the 36 teaching weeks.
How does the subject reach a particular school?
The board of administration of the school settles the pupil-chosen curriculum from the school’s offer, after consulting pupils and parents and according to the resources available. Only once the subject is in the offer can the pupil choose it.
Is it marked?
Yes. The syllabus provides for formative and summative assessment, and the order contains no derogation from the ordinary marking rules, so the subject goes into the register like any other on the pupil’s timetable.
Does it count for the baccalaureate?
No. The papers of the national baccalaureate examination are listed in article 102 paragraph (4) of Law no. 198/2023, and an elective from the school’s offer is not among them.
What exactly is studied?
Seven areas: the Cold War and the founding of NATO, the organisation of the Alliance and the meaning of article 5, the enlargement after 1989 and the Partnership for Peace, the development of the strategic concepts, relations with the UN and with the European Union, collective defence and the new security challenges, including NATO in the context of the war in Ukraine, and Romania in NATO, from the 2004 accession to its strategic role in the Black Sea region.
Who wrote the syllabus?
A working group of four people, two teachers with doctorates and two teachers, all of them from Bucharest: from the „Virgil Madgearu” Economic College, the „Spiru Haret” National College and the „Matei Basarab” National College.
From when does it apply?
The order says that the syllabus applies from the 2026-2027 school year. The order itself entered into force on 1 September 2026, the date of publication in the Official Gazette of Romania.

Errors and inconsistencies in the published text

  • Article 2 of the order, read against the framework curriculum for grade X. The text provides that „the school syllabus referred to in article 1 shall apply from the 2026-2027 school year”. In that school year, however, grade X of full-time upper secondary education is still governed by the framework curricula in force in the 2024-2025 school year, under article 40 paragraph (2) of Order of the Minister of Education and Research no. 4.350/2025. The framework curricula that contain the category „pupil-chosen curriculum from the school’s offer” apply progressively, starting with the cohort entering grade IX in 2026-2027, under article 39 of the same order, so they reach grade X only in the 2027-2028 school year. On top of that, article 5 of Order of the Minister of Education no. 6.072/2023, invoked in the preamble of this very order, provides that until article 86 of Law no. 198/2023 enters into force, the article that establishes the pupil-chosen curriculum, the legal provisions in force on 1 September 2023 continue to apply. The practical result: in the school year from which the order says it applies, the framework curriculum for grade X does not contain the slot in which the subject should sit, and the management of a school cannot establish from the act whether it may offer it within the school-decided curriculum hours of the framework curriculum still in force, or whether it has to wait for the 2027-2028 school year.
  • The title of the order and article 1, read against article 86 of Law no. 198/2023. The subject is established for „grade X, upper secondary education”, with no mention of track or profile. The legal basis invoked in the preamble, article 86 paragraph (3) of Law no. 198/2023, limits the pupil-chosen curriculum from the school’s offer to primary, lower secondary and upper secondary education, theoretical track and vocational track. For the technological track, paragraphs (6) and (7) of the same article lay down a different regime, in which this curriculum is drawn up by the school in partnership with economic operators or local authorities and is approved through specific methodologies. The order thus defines its addressee more broadly than the text it rests on, and the management of a technological upper secondary school cannot establish from the act whether the subject is open to it or not. The comparison is close at hand: Order of the Minister of Education and Research no. 3.913/2026, which approves the elective „The GIS lesson”, states the theoretical track and the science and humanities profiles.

Editorial analysis

The syllabus solves a real problem and solves it with the right means. A teacher who wanted to run this elective had two options until now, both poor: build it alone, with the whole endorsement route, or give up. The text approved now is well made as a curricular document, it has the structure the methodology requires, it states its relationship with History in the common core instead of leaving it implicit and, unlike many elective syllabuses, it does not stop at listing topics but goes down to examples of activities set out in stages, with the final output and the assessment criteria for each.

The calendar, though, says something different from the text. The order was signed on 7 July 2026 and appeared in the Official Gazette of Romania on 1 September 2026, 56 days after signature and six days before classes start, on 7 September. The comparison with acts from the same family is telling: Order no. 3.595/2025, which approved seven elective syllabuses, was published on 9 April 2025 for the 2025-2026 school year, almost five months in advance, and Order no. 3.913/2026, the one on the GIS elective, appeared on 17 June 2026, two and a half months in advance. The clearest benchmark comes from the official calendar itself: Order no. 3.194/2026 requires every school to communicate to pupils and parents the detailed structure of the 2026-2027 school year by 1 April 2026. In other words, on the day the syllabus became public, timetables and staffing had been settled for months.

The second problem shows up only if you count. The syllabus has 4 general competences, 12 specific competences and, beneath them, 48 examples of learning activities, to which are added 12 indicative examples each developed in three or four stages. The content means 22 numbered topics plus 4 case studies, that is, 26 units. All of that has to fit into one hour a week, so into the 36 teaching weeks of the 2026-2027 school year, from which five working days each are subtracted for „School differently” and for „Green week”. That leaves around 34 hours for 26 content units, assessment included. An educational podcast, a documentation portfolio and a small thematic exhibition are not done in an hour each, and the syllabus does not say what is to be left out.

Finally, two internal mismatches, smaller but visible. General competence 3 is called „Interpreting the relations between democracy, collective security, human rights and international cooperation”, and specific competence 3.2 calls for the analysis of situations in which security is set against fundamental human rights. The phrase „human rights” appears nowhere in the table of contents, though: the teacher has to anchor it alone in the Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo case studies. And the working group that wrote the syllabus has four members, all from Bucharest, two of them from the same college, for a subject in the national offer expressly recommended to military upper secondary schools and colleges, in the drafting of which no teacher from military education and none from outside the capital appears.

What should be changed

  • Moving the application to the 2027-2028 school year, or an express provision for the transition period. Since the framework curriculum for grade X reaches the category „pupil-chosen curriculum” only in 2027-2028, a single sentence saying that until then the subject may be taught within the school-decided curriculum hours would spare every school an interpretation each will make differently.
  • Naming the track and the profiles in the title and in article 1. The wording in Order no. 3.913/2026 already exists and works. Taken over here, it would show from the first line who can choose the subject and would close the question for technological schools.
  • Publishing elective syllabuses by 1 April, together with the detailed structure of the school year. That is the deadline the ministry already imposes on schools for informing parents. Applied to the issuer as well, it would let a new syllabus catch the consultation of pupils and the draft staffing plan, instead of arriving after them.
  • A content area or topic for human rights. General competence 3 and specific competence 3.2 call for it, but the table of contents does not support it. An explicit entry, in area 6, would tie the competence to the material taught instead of leaving the link to each teacher.
  • An indicative budget of hours across the seven content areas. With 26 units for around 34 hours, the split decides what is actually taught. Without it, two classes in the same town will cover different material under the same name, and area 7, the one about Romania, risks being left last and shortest.
  • A broader working group at the revision. The syllabus is recommended to military upper secondary schools and colleges, yet nobody from that system took part in writing it, and no teacher from outside Bucharest either. At the first revision, their presence would bring into the text precisely the experience the subject invokes.

Original text of the legal act

The text below is reproduced in Romanian, the official form of publication.

The full text, as published in the Official Gazette of Romania

Official Gazette of Romania no. 735 of 1 September 2026 16 pages PDF, 112 KB the act starts on page 10

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