In brief
- Technological high school pupils sit the certification tests between 7 and 10 June 2027 and learn the results on 11 June. Vocational school pupils sit them on 24 and 25 June 2027, with results on 28 June. Anyone who fails or does not turn up has a second session on 18 and 19 August 2027, with results on 20 August.
- At post-secondary school, the appeal window for the written test drops from two days to a single one, in all three civilian sessions. At the schools of the Ministry of Internal Affairs it stays at two days, as last year.
- For levels 3 and 4, that is for most candidates, the schedule has three rows: enrolment, tests, final results. No day for appeals is provided.
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) no. 745 of 3 September 2026
In force from: 3 September 2026
The Ministry of Education and Research has fixed all the dates of the professional certification examinations for the 2026-2027 school year, eight months before the first tests taken by pupils in the civilian system. Order no. 5.214 of 27 August 2026, signed by minister Mihai Dimian and published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 745 of 3 September 2026, approves 17 separate schedules, spread over 260 days, from 3 December 2026 to 20 August 2027. It is the second school calendar act published by the ministry this week, after the syllabuses for the 2030 baccalaureate. The baccalaureate calendar for the same school year came separately, through MEC Order no. 5.211/2026.
In the same week, the ministry separately approved the curriculum for the nurse responsible for general care qualification, the largest qualification in the health post-secondary system.
The examination certifying professional qualification is the act with which a graduate of a vocational school, of a technological high school or of a post-secondary school leaves the system with a recognised trade. Without it, he is left with the studies completed but without the qualification itself. It is taken separately from the baccalaureate and does not replace it. The levels in the order follow the European qualifications framework: level 3 means vocational school and practical training placements, level 4 means technological high school, and level 5 means post-secondary school and school for master craftsmen.
For level 3 there are three sessions. Graduates of practical training placements enrol on 5 and 6 May 2027, sit the tests on 7 and 8 May and receive the final results on 9 May. Graduates of vocational education enrol on 22 and 23 June 2027, sit the tests on 24 and 25 June and learn the results on 28 June. In August, the two categories meet in the same session: enrolment on 16 and 17 August 2027, tests on 18 and 19 August, final results on 20 August.
For level 4, technological high school pupils have two sessions. The first starts with enrolment on 31 May 2027 and closes on 4 June, has the tests between 7 and 10 June and displays the results on 11 June. The second is the August one, on the same days as at level 3: 16-17 August enrolment, 18-19 August tests, 20 August results.
For civilian level 5, the order gives one session in February and one in the summer. The February 2027 one runs as follows: enrolment between 1 and 5 February, practical test on 8 and 9 February, written test on 10 February, results of the written test on 11 February, appeals on 12 February, oral test or graduation project on 15 and 16 February, final results on 17 February. The summer session has enrolment between 22 and 25 June 2027, the practical test on 28 and 29 June, the written one on 30 June, the results of the written test on 1 July, appeals on 2 July, the project on 5 and 6 July and the final results on 7 July.
General nurses have a schedule of their own, moved towards the end of the summer: enrolment between 26 and 30 July 2027, practical test between 2 and 4 August, written test on 5 August, results of the written test on 6 August, appeals on 9 August, project between 10 and 12 August, final results on 13 August.
The remaining articles cover schools with their own regime. The post-secondary schools of the Ministry of Internal Affairs have their session in December 2026, between 3 and 16 December. The „Pavel Zăgănescu” School for Fire and Civil Protection Non-Commissioned Officers in Boldești has its session from 25 February to 10 March 2027. The „Constantin Brâncoveanu” National School for Prison Police in Târgu Ocna receives four schedules, two for each of the two course intakes, the main session and the single re-examination session. The military schools for master craftsmen and non-commissioned officers of the Ministry of National Defence have session I in June and July 2027 and a session II in July and August, open, the order says, „only for graduates who do not pass session I”.
The baccalaureate average counts for more than the calendar: in the same period the Government approved financial incentives of 5,000 lei for graduates with an average of 10 at the baccalaureate.
What it changes in practice
The order is binding on the school inspectorates and on the education units from the moment of publication. The dates in it can no longer be moved by a school or an inspectorate on its own, and the examination boards are set up within the windows fixed here. For a pupil, the practical effect is that from now, from 3 September 2026, he knows on what day he has to be at school to enrol and on what day he sits the test.
The second effect concerns who may enter the examination. Article 16 says that graduates of earlier cohorts, whatever the form of education they completed, may present themselves in any of the sessions corresponding to their level of qualification in the current school year. Someone who finished vocational school in 2022 and never obtained certification may enter the June 2027 session or the August one, on the same terms as the current cohort.
The third effect is about personal data. Article 17 requires results to be displayed in anonymised form, with an individual code instead of the name and the father’s initial. The list put up on the notice board may contain the code, the county, the education unit, the cohort, the form of education, the qualification, the marks per test, the average and the final result, that is „pass”, „fail”, „did not attend” or „excluded from the examination”. The display stays up for one month, and the board has to put an information notice both on the notice board and on the doors of the examination rooms.
What has changed compared with the previous situation
The act that governed last year was Order of the Minister of Education and Research no. 6.056 of 29 August 2025, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 865 of 22 September 2025. Compared row by row, the two orders show three differences that matter.
The first, and the most visible for pupils: the main session of vocational school moves from July to June. Last year, enrolment was between 1 and 3 July 2026, the tests between 6 and 10 July, and the final results on 10 July. This year the tests start on 24 June 2027, twelve days earlier. At the same time the session gets shorter: enrolment goes from three days to two, and the tests from five days to two. The whole session, from the first day of enrolment to the display of results, goes from nine days to six.
The second: at civilian post-secondary school, appeals against the written test are cut from two days to one. In the 2025 order, the February session had appeals on 12 and 13 February 2026, the summer session on 2 and 3 July 2026, and the session for general nurses on 17 and 18 August 2026. In the new order, the same three sessions have a single day: 12 February 2027, 2 July 2027 and 9 August 2027 respectively. The reduction is not general. At the post-secondary schools of the Ministry of Internal Affairs the window stays at two days, 11 and 12 December 2026, exactly as it was on 12-13 December 2025. The order does not explain why a day is cut for civilians and not cut for Internal Affairs.
The third: the structure of the examinations in schools with a special regime is rearranged. The qualification of fire and civil protection non-commissioned officer was last year on the list of post-secondary schools of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in the same article as police officers. This year it gets an article of its own, with the school named, Boldești, and with a separate session in February and March 2027. The Prison Police School in Târgu Ocna goes from one course intake a year to two, intake I between 1 July 2026 and 30 April 2027 and intake II between 1 September 2026 and 9 July 2027, each with its own main session and with a single re-examination session.
For the rest, the August calendar stays almost identical, shifted one day forward: 17-18 August 2026 becomes 16-17 August 2027 for enrolment, 19-20 August becomes 18-19 August for the tests, and 21 August becomes 20 August for the results. At technological high school, the total length of the spring session stays the same, eleven days from the first enrolment to the results, but the whole window moves eight days earlier, and the tests grow from three days to four.
Advantages and disadvantages
What it improves
- The dates are published eight months before the first test in the civilian system, and for the summer session of technological high school nine months ahead. A twelfth grade pupil can plan his revision from September.
- The enrolment window at technological high school, between 31 May and 4 June 2027, closes on the very day classes end for the twelfth and thirteenth grades, on 4 June 2027, according to the structure of the school year. The pupil enrols while he is still at school, not after the cohort has scattered.
- Each level has at least two sessions in the same school year, so anyone who fails or is absent does not lose a whole year.
- Article 17 imposes an individual code instead of the name when results are displayed and limits the display to one month, which puts an end to an old practice of leaving lists with names on the notice board until the autumn.
- The schools of the Ministry of National Defence expressly receive a session II reserved for those who do not pass session I, with the wording „only for graduates who do not pass session I”. Nobody can take the places in the second session without having tried the first.
What remains a problem
- At levels 3 and 4, where the candidates are most numerous, the schedule has three rows and no day for appeals. A vocational school graduate unhappy with his mark finds in the order no window in which to challenge it, while a post-secondary pupil has one and a pupil at a Ministry of Internal Affairs school has two.
- The cut in appeals at civilian post-secondary school from two days to one is nowhere justified in the act and does not apply to the schools of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which keep their two days.
- General nurse graduates from the current cohort have a single written session under the name of their qualification, in July and August 2027. The order does not say whether they may also enter the general post-secondary session in June and July.
- The tests for graduates of practical training placements fall on 7 and 8 May 2027, that is a Friday and a Saturday, and the final results are displayed on 9 May, which is a Sunday. Nothing forbids this, but it requires staff at school over the weekend.
- The order fixes the dates, but not the times or the places for levels 3 and 4. The pupil still has to ask at the school office at what hour and in which room, information that does not reach everyone in the same way.
Practical advice
- Note down the enrolment day now, not the test day. At levels 3 and 4 the enrolment window is two days, and at vocational school it is 22 and 23 June 2027. Whoever misses it loses the session, not just a day.
- If you are in the twelfth grade at a technological high school, treat 4 June 2027 as a double deadline: it is the last day for enrolling for certification and the last day of classes. Do not leave the enrolment for after the holiday starts, because the deadline closes before.
- Ask the school office in writing for the list of enrolment documents and the deadline, with a registration number. The order does not list the documents needed, they come from the certification methodology and from the practice of each unit.
- If you are also sitting the baccalaureate, plan on the basis that the two examinations are close together. Certification ends on 11 June 2027, and the calendar proposed for the 2027 baccalaureate starts the written tests on 14 June. The baccalaureate calendar had not, however, been approved on the date this order was published.
- At post-secondary school, check the appeal day in the calendar before the written test. It is a single day, right after the results are displayed: 12 February 2027 in the winter session, 2 July 2027 in the summer one, 9 August 2027 for general nurses.
- If you graduated in an earlier cohort and never obtained certification, go to the school you graduated from and invoke Article 16 of the order. It gives you the right to any of the sessions for your level in this school year.
- When you look at the list on the notice board, look for the individual code received at enrolment, not for the name. From 2026 results are displayed anonymised, and the list stays up for one month.
- For the August session, remember that level 3 and level 4 have the same dates: 16 and 17 August enrolment, 18 and 19 August tests, 20 August results. If there are two pupils of different levels in the family, it is the same week for both.
Frequently asked questions
When do vocational school pupils sit the certification examination?
And technological high school pupils?
When is the examination taken at post-secondary school and at school for master craftsmen?
I failed or did not turn up. Do I have another chance in the same year?
Can I appeal against my mark?
I finished school a few years ago. Can I still sit the examination?
Will my name appear on the results list?
How long do the results stay on the notice board?
What happens to pupils of the police, fire, prison and Army schools?
From when does the order apply?
Errors and inconsistencies in the published text
- Article 13 read against Article 11 and Article 16, how many sessions a general nurse graduate has. Article 11 approves the schedule of the summer session „a absolvenților învățământului postliceal, nivelul 5 de calificare”, of the graduates of post-secondary education, qualification level 5, without excluding any qualification. Article 13 approves a separate schedule, in July and August 2027, for the same post-secondary graduates, level 5, „calificarea profesională asistent medical generalist”, the professional qualification of general nurse. Neither of the two articles says whether the second schedule replaces the first for this qualification or is added to it. That the omission is significant can be seen from Article 12, where the ministry wrote expressly „numai pentru absolvenții care nu promovează sesiunea I”, only for graduates who do not pass session I, when it wanted to restrict a session. Article 16 answers the question only for earlier cohorts, not for the current one. The consequence is concrete: a graduate of 2027 cannot establish from the act whether he has a single attempt in the 2026-2027 school year, on 5 August, or two, on 30 June and on 5 August. If the answer is „a single one”, a mark below the threshold on 5 August means waiting until the following school year, and this is the only qualification in the order in that position.
Editorial analysis
The figure that says the most about this order is written nowhere in it. It has to be counted. The schedule for the largest group of candidates in the country, the graduates of vocational school and of technological high school, has three rows: enrolment, tests, final results. The schedule for a few hundred pupils at the National School for Prison Police in Târgu Ocna has eleven rows and goes down to the hour: the marking scheme is displayed, it can be challenged for four hours from display, it is reassessed by 10:00 the next day, and appeals against the results are filed between 14:00 and 18:00 and settled by 20:00. The same administration writes, in the same act, a calendar with a clock for a few hundred people and a calendar with three rows for tens of thousands.
The second observation comes out of the comparison with last year’s order, no. 6.056/2025. All three civilian post-secondary sessions lose a day of appeals against the written test. There used to be two days, 12-13 February 2026, 2-3 July 2026 and 17-18 August 2026. Now there is a single one each, 12 February, 2 July and 9 August 2027. The cut is selective: at the post-secondary schools of the Ministry of Internal Affairs the window stays at two days, 11 and 12 December 2026, exactly as it was on 12 and 13 December 2025. No explanation appears in the preamble and no public memorandum justifies it. When the administration halves the window of the only mechanism through which a candidate can challenge a mark, the reason ought to be written down somewhere.
The third comes out of the ratio between the deadlines the ministry imposes on candidates and those it gives itself. At Târgu Ocna, in the main session, the board has 52 hours to mark the written papers, from 10:00 on 24 April 2027, when the marking scheme becomes final, to 14:00 on 26 April, when the results are displayed. In the single re-examination session of the same intake, the same board has 14 hours, from 22:00 on 18 May to 12:00 on 19 May. Almost four times less, for the same qualification and the same test. And appeals filed between 14:00 and 18:00 have to be settled by 20:00, that is within two hours. These deadlines are not impossible, but they are such that the outcome depends on how many candidates appeal, not on what is written in the paper.
The last observation concerns the fit with the rest of the school calendar. The structure of the 2026-2027 school year, approved by Order no. 3.194 of 9 February 2026, ends classes for the twelfth and thirteenth grades on 4 June 2027. Certification at technological high school is taken between 7 and 10 June, with results on 11 June. The calendar proposed in August 2026 for the 2027 baccalaureate, still under consultation on the date this order was published, starts the written tests on 14 June 2027. If that draft is approved as written, three days are left between the certification result and the first written baccalaureate test, two of them a weekend. Last year there were ten: certification ended on 19 June 2026, and the baccalaureate started on 29 June. The two calendars are drawn up in different departments of the ministry and do not see each other, and the technological high school pupil is the only one who sits both.
Order 5.225/2026 sets out, for the same school year, the weekly split between classes and practical placements in vocational and technological high school, exactly the calendar segment missing from this certification schedule.
What should be changed
- Add a day for appeals at levels 3 and 4. A single row between the tests and the final results would be enough, as already exists at level 5. In the August session the calendar can take it without getting longer: the tests end on 19 August 2027, and the results are displayed only on 20 August.
- State in Article 13 whether the session for general nurses is the only one or is added to the one in Article 11. A single word, „only”, already used in Article 12, would close the question for a few thousand graduates a year.
- Narrow Article 16 to the sessions of the open system. The present wording, „any of the sessions corresponding to the level of qualification”, in theory sends a civilian post-secondary graduate from an earlier cohort to the session held in the prison police school or in a military school. That is not what is intended, but the text does not exclude it.
- Give reasons in the preamble for cutting appeals from two days to one. If the rationale is that no appeals were filed on the second day, the figure exists at the National Centre for Curriculum and Assessment and can be cited. If the rationale is compressing the calendar, that should be said.
- Publish a single table, by level, together with the order. The 17 schedules are scattered across 15 articles, and some articles contain two. A vocational school pupil has to read a five-page act of the Official Gazette of Romania to find out two dates that concern him.
- Align the certification calendar with the baccalaureate one before approval, not after. The certification order appeared on 3 September 2026, while the 2027 baccalaureate calendar was still a draft. The reverse order would have left room for adjustment where the two touch.
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. 745 of 3 September 2026 16 pages PDF, 103 KB the act starts on page 12
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