In brief

  • A school director no longer has a fixed number of class hours, but a percentage of their own teaching load. The general rule is 40%. A director who is a lower secondary, upper secondary or post-secondary teacher now has a load of 20 hours a week, so teaches 8. In units with 750 to 999 children the percentage drops to 35%, that is 7 hours, and in those with at least 1,000 children to 30%, that is 6 hours. Fractions of an hour are rounded down.
  • Every category of management staff teaches less than it did three weeks ago. The biggest winner is the director of a school with no more than 100 children: until now they taught a full load, 20 hours, and from now on they teach 8. Deputy directors go down from 12 hours to 8, the chief school inspector no longer teaches at all, their deputies go from 6 hours to 4, and school inspectors from 8 to 6.
  • The hours freed up come with no extra money. The inspectorates monitor the application of the rules „cu încadrarea în bugetul aprobat” (within the budget already approved) for the units, so the hours left uncovered have to come out of the existing staffing schedule. A director who asks to teach more receives nothing for the surplus: hours above the obligation set, but below a full load, are not paid on an hourly basis. The order was signed on 31 August 2026 and published on 15 September 2026, eight days after classes began, with no provision at all about the staffing decisions already taken.
Act: Order of the Minister of Education and Research no. 5.519 of 31 August 2026 approving the Methodological Rules for establishing the relief from the teaching load and the teaching obligation of teaching staff holding management, guidance and control positions in pre-university education
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) no. 778 of 15 September 2026
In force from: 15 September 2026, the date of publication

The Ministry of Education and Research has changed the way the number of class hours left to a school director, a deputy director and an inspector is worked out: no longer a figure written in a table, but a percentage of each person’s own teaching load. The new methodological rules implement the ceilings of 40% and 30% introduced at the end of August by Law no. 182/2026, which rewrote Article 208 of the Pre-University Education Law, and replace an order that managed to stay in force for 19 days.

The order has four articles. Article 1 approves the methodological rules in the annex, Article 2 repeals Order of the Minister of Education and Research no. 4.690/2026, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 714 of 27 August 2026, Article 3 lists who is to carry it out, and Article 4 orders publication. The rules themselves have 11 articles and take up three pages of issue no. 778. The act was signed by Minister Mihai Dimian in Bucharest on 31 August 2026, on the basis of approval report no. 3.250/DGMCDRSIP of 31 August 2026.

Relief means, in the wording of Article 1(2) of the rules, full or partial exemption from carrying out the teaching load. A school director stays a teacher on paper and keeps the salary rights of the position, but goes into the classroom only for part of the hours they would have had as a teacher. The benchmark from which that part is calculated is, under Article 1(3), the load of the teaching position the person held on the date of appointment to the management post, according to their studies, specialisation and teaching grade.

The figure everything starts from is not in the order, but in Law no. 141/2025 on certain fiscal and budgetary measures. Article LVIII of that law suspended, from the 2025-2026 school year until the start of the 2029-2030 school year, the loads laid down in Law no. 198/2023 and replaced them with higher ones: 20 hours a week for lower secondary, upper secondary and post-secondary teachers, instead of 18; 26 hours for teachers of practical training and master instructors, instead of 24; and, in special education, 18 hours for classroom teachers and 22 for teacher-educators, instead of 16 and 20. The three points cited in the order, (b), (d) and (f), are exactly these.

What it changes in practice

The order enters into force on 15 September 2026, the date of its publication in the Official Gazette of Romania. It is an act of the head of a central specialised body, so the three-day term reserved for laws and ordinances does not apply to it.

The full grid, as it emerges from Articles 3, 4 and 5 of the rules, runs as follows. Directors of state pre-university education units teach 40% of their load. The percentage drops to 35% if the unit has between 750 and 999 pupils, pre-school and early childhood children, or between 400 and 499 pre-school and early childhood children, or between 300 and 399 early childhood children, or, in special education, between 100 and 199 pupils and pre-school children. It drops to 30% if the unit has at least 1,000 children, at least 500 pre-school children, at least 400 early childhood children or, in special education, at least 200 pupils and pre-school children. Deputy directors stay at 40%, whatever the size of the unit.

Directors and deputy directors of children’s palaces and clubs and of county centres for educational resources and assistance also teach 40%. Directors of teacher training centres and of training centres for minorities teach 30%. In the inspectorates, the chief school inspector is fully relieved, their deputies teach 20%, and school inspectors with guidance and control duties teach 30%.

Translated into hours, for the most common case, that of a director who is a lower or upper secondary teacher and therefore has a load of 20 hours, the percentages give round figures: 8 hours at 40%, 7 hours at 35%, 6 hours at 30%, 4 hours at 20%. For a director who is a master instructor, with a load of 26 hours, 40% means 10.4 hours, rounded down to 10. For the director of a special school who teaches in the classroom, with a load of 18 hours, 35% means 6.3 hours, that is 6.

Children are counted on 1 September of each school year, under Article 1(6). Changes occurring after that date take effect only from the following school year, with a single exception: reorganisation of the unit through a binding administrative act.

The hours a director teaches go into the staffing documents and the staffing schedule of the school where they hold their post or, under Article 2(2), of another education unit. They must fall within the specialisation acquired through the person’s studies, in accordance with the Centralised List of Subjects in Pre-University Education.

Anyone who wants to teach more can ask for it in writing, but the extra work is unpaid: Article 6(2) provides that hours worked above the obligation set, but within the limits of a full load, are not remunerated on an hourly-paid basis. And staff who have been relieved may not teach on an hourly-paid basis or by holding a second post anywhere, under Article 7(1), a rule that comes straight from the law.

The only way round it is in Article 7(2): the board of the inspectorate may approve hourly-paid teaching in units in geographically and linguistically isolated areas, but only if five conditions are met cumulatively, among them that the post has been put up in the mobility process and that no qualified staff are available. The approval is given by reasoned decision and only until classes end for the school year.

For those who cannot teach because their studies do not allow it, Article 8 provides equivalent activities, from remedial learning and coaching for competitions to lesson observation, mentoring and involvement in county or national programmes. The list is not exhaustive, and the procedure setting them out in detail is still to be approved by the secretary of state for pre-university education. Equivalent activities cannot replace teaching where the school has vacant or reserved hours matching the person’s specialisation.

Representative trade union federations keep the right to designate persons who are relieved, within a limit of 90 teaching loads nationwide. What is new is that their relief may now be full as well as partial. Those 90 loads mean, at 20 hours each, up to 1,800 teaching hours a week taken out of classrooms. The persons designated file a monthly activity report with the trade union organisation, and federation presidents report to the ministry every six months.

Who pays for the hours freed up is, in fact, still the school. The director keeps the salary of the management position, and the hours they no longer teach stay in the staffing schedule and have to be covered by someone else, either as part of a load or through hourly-paid teaching. Article 10(1) requires the inspectorates to monitor the application of the rules within the budget already approved for the institutions and units, so without any extra money. The same Article 10, in paragraph (2), allows the ministry to ask for the withdrawal of acts issued without observing the rules.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

The order being replaced, no. 4.690/2026, had been published on 27 August 2026 and was itself new: it had repealed the 2011 rules, which had lasted 15 years. It stayed in force for 19 days. Its logic was entirely different: it set fixed hours, the same for all directors in the same situation, whatever subject they taught.

A position-by-position comparison shows that no category comes out worse. The new figures are calculated for a load of 20 hours, the one that applies to lower secondary, upper secondary and post-secondary teachers.

The biggest change concerns the director of a unit with no more than 100 children. The old order gave them no relief at all, so they taught a full load, 20 hours a week, exactly like a teacher who runs nothing. From now on they teach 8. That is 12 hours less, more than in any other position in the act.

In a unit with more than 100 children that did not meet the size conditions, the obligation falls from 14 hours to 8. In large units, meaning those that had at least 25 study groups or met one of the other conditions in the old Article 2(2), it falls from 10 hours to 8, and if the unit has between 750 and 999 children, to 7. In very large ones, with at least 1,000 pupils, it falls from 8 hours to 6.

Deputy directors go down from 12 hours to 8. Directors of children’s palaces and clubs make the same move from 12 to 8, together with those of county centres for educational resources and assistance. In teacher training centres, management staff go down from 8 hours to 6. In the inspectorates everyone taught 6 hours until now; from here on the chief school inspector teaches nothing at all, and their deputies teach 4. Inspectors with guidance and control duties go down from 8 hours to 6.

The second substantive change is the criterion. The repealed order measured the complexity of a school by the number of study groups, the affiliated units, the presence of a boarding house or a canteen and the number of education levels. A director with 24 classes spread across five buildings automatically fell into the 10-hour band, even with 500 pupils. The new order has kept a single criterion, the number of children. The director with five affiliated units and 500 pupils is now treated exactly like the one with a single building: 40%.

The third change concerns the trade unions. The old text allowed them to designate persons benefiting from partial relief. The new one says „degrevare parțială sau totală” (partial or full relief). The ceiling of 90 teaching loads is untouched.

The fourth change is the ban on hourly payment for the surplus. The previous text allowed management staff to ask to carry out the full load, without saying anything about money. The new Article 6(2) states expressly that hours above the obligation are not remunerated.

The exception for isolated areas has moved as well. It used to be reserved for primary or lower secondary units in rural areas that were geographically isolated. It now applies to any unit in geographically and linguistically isolated areas, whatever its level and setting, but is subject to five cumulative requirements that the law itself does not impose.

Finally, a new category has appeared, the training centres for minorities, whose directors teach 30%, and one mention has gone: centres of excellence, named expressly in the old order, do not appear at all in the new one. They remain covered, because Article 51 of Law no. 198/2023 provides that they operate as extracurricular education units, and those are dealt with in Article 4 of the rules, but the cover comes through a cross-reference rather than by name.

Advantages and disadvantages

What it improves

  • Directors of small schools escape the absurd position of running a unit and teaching a full load at the same time. Moving from 20 to 8 hours is the largest correction in the act and it lands exactly where the lack of management time was felt most, in rural schools with fewer than 100 children.
  • Percentages tie the teaching obligation to each person’s actual load rather than to a fixed table. When the law raises the teaching load, as Law no. 141/2025 did from 18 to 20 hours, the directors’ obligation rises proportionally, with no need for a new order.
  • The rounding rule is written down, and written in one direction only, downwards, in Article 1(5). No room is left for local interpretation of fractions of an hour.
  • The ban on hourly-paid teaching or on holding a second post, taken over from the law, closes off a practice by which a relieved director could earn income from hours at other schools, during time from which they had been released precisely in order to manage.
  • The act says expressly what happens to those whose studies do not allow a teaching obligation to be set: they carry out equivalent activities, listed in Article 8, but only if the school has no vacant hours matching their specialisation.

What remains a problem

  • The order was signed on 31 August and published on 15 September, eight days after classes began. Staffing for the 2026-2027 school year had already been settled under the previous order, which was then in force, and the new act contains no transitional provision about it.
  • The same director may end up with two different percentages, 35% or 30%, if their unit ticks a condition in Article 3(2) and one in paragraph (3) at the same time. The old order avoided this, because the lower band applied only on top of the higher one.
  • The percentages are applied to a load expressed in hours, but for pre-school and primary school teachers the law defines the load as a post rather than a number of hours. The act does not say what the 40% is taken from in the case of the director of a nursery or a primary school, even though Article 3 refers expressly to units with pre-school and early childhood children.
  • The number of hours a director teaches ends up depending on their subject rather than on the school they run. Two directors of identical units teach 8 and 10 hours respectively if one is a mathematics teacher and the other a master instructor. The old system, with fixed hours, treated them alike.
  • The hours freed up are not separately funded. Article 10(1) requires everything to fit inside the budget already approved, so covering them presses on the school’s existing staffing schedule, in a system that already has a shortage of teachers in some subjects.
  • The complexity criteria have gone. A school with five affiliated units, a boarding house and a canteen, but with 500 pupils, is treated like one with a single building and the same number of children.
  • The act sets itself no deadline for its own instruments: the secretary of state’s procedure under Article 8 and the order listing the relieved union officials under Article 9(7) have no cut-off date, even though schools have to apply the rules from 15 September.

Practical advice

  1. Check first what your teaching load is, not the percentage. For lower secondary, upper secondary and post-secondary teachers the load is 20 hours a week until the start of the 2029-2030 school year, under Article LVIII of Law no. 141/2025, not the 18 written in Law no. 198/2023. Every calculation starts from there.
  2. Read the count of children on 1 September 2026 again. It decides whether you are at 40%, 35% or 30%, and Article 1(6) freezes it for the whole school year. If the unit has lost or gained children after 1 September, the old figure stays valid until next year.
  3. If the unit ticks a condition in paragraph (2) and one in paragraph (3) of Article 3 at the same time, ask the inspectorate in writing to tell you the applicable percentage, so that you have a document. The act does not say which of the two bands wins.
  4. Compare the staffing decision issued in August or early September with the new grid. If the number of hours differs, ask for it to be redone, because Article 10(2) allows the ministry to seek the withdrawal of acts issued without observing the rules.
  5. Do not accept hours above the obligation set on the assumption that they will be paid by the hour. Article 6(2) declares them expressly unpaid for as long as they stay below a full load.
  6. If you teach on an hourly-paid basis at another school, check whether you fall within the exception in Article 7(2). The five conditions are cumulative, and the approval must exist as a reasoned decision of the inspectorate’s board, not as mere tacit acceptance.
  7. Directors of nurseries and primary schools who themselves teach a group or a class should ask the inspectorate, in writing, for the basis of calculation in hours before signing their staffing decision. Their load is defined by law as a post, and the percentage cannot be applied to it directly.

Frequently asked questions

How many hours does a school director teach from 15 September 2026?
It depends on the load of their teaching position and on the size of the unit. For a director who is a lower secondary, upper secondary or post-secondary teacher, with a load of 20 hours, the general rule of 40% means 8 hours a week. If the unit has between 750 and 999 children, the percentage drops to 35%, that is 7 hours. If it has at least 1,000 children, it drops to 30%, that is 6 hours.
Why percentages now, and not hours as before?
Because Law no. 182/2026, published on 28 August 2026, rewrote Article 208(11) of the Pre-University Education Law and fixed the ceilings of 40% and 30% there, together with the rule on rounding down. The minister’s order merely distributes the percentages across categories, below the ceilings set by the law.
What happens to the staffing decisions taken in September, under the old order?
The order says nothing about them. Order no. 4.690/2026 was repealed on 15 September 2026, and the new grid has applied since then. Article 10(2) allows the ministry to seek the withdrawal of acts issued without observing the rules, without distinguishing between those issued before and those issued after.
Does a director who teaches less lose part of their salary?
No. Article 208(12) of Law no. 198/2023 provides that relieved staff receive the salary rights of the position they hold, plus the statutory bonuses and allowances. The salary remains that of the management position.
Can I teach more if I want to?
Yes, it can be requested in writing, up to a full load, in the specialisations acquired through your studies. But hours above the obligation set are not paid by the hour, under Article 6(2). The extra work is, financially, free.
Can a relieved director take paid hours at another school?
As a rule, no. Article 7(1) prohibits teaching remunerated on an hourly-paid basis or through holding a second post. There is a single exception, in paragraph (2): units in geographically and linguistically isolated areas, with the approval of the inspectorate’s board, and only if the post has been put up in the mobility process, no qualified staff are available, the person has the right specialisation, the activity does not affect the management position, and the approval is given for a fixed period.
Who covers the hours the director no longer teaches?
The school, out of the resources it has. The hours stay in the staffing schedule and are given to another teacher, either as part of a load or on an hourly-paid basis. Article 10(1) requires the inspectorates to monitor the application of the rules within the budget already approved for the units, so the relief comes with no extra money attached.
What changes in the inspectorates?
The chief school inspector no longer teaches at all, against 6 hours before. Deputy chief inspectors teach 20% of their load, that is 4 hours on a load of 20, against 6 hours before. Inspectors with guidance and control duties teach 30%, that is 6 hours, against 8 before.
What happens after the school inspectorates are reorganised?
Article 11 provides that the names are to be read differently, without the rules changing: the inspectorate becomes the county pre-university education directorate, the chief school inspector becomes director-general, the deputy becomes deputy director-general, and the teacher training centre becomes the teaching career centre. The date of the reorganisation is not set in this order.

Errors and inconsistencies in the published text

  • Article 3 of the annex, paragraphs (2) and (3). Both are drafted as exceptions to paragraph (1), not one to the other, and each applies if the unit meets „cel puțin una” (at least one) of the conditions listed. Those conditions can be met at the same time, because they refer to different populations. A unit with 900 children, 550 of them pre-school, falls both under paragraph (2)(a), 750 to 999 children, and under paragraph (3)(b), at least 500 pre-school children. Likewise, a unit with 1,200 children, 450 of them pre-school, falls under paragraph (3)(a) and under paragraph (2)(b). The text does not establish which band prevails, so two percentages can be argued for the same unit, 35% and 30%, that is 7 or 6 hours a week on a load of 20 hours. The repealed order solved the problem by construction: Article 2(3) of Order no. 4.690/2026 applied only to units that already met a condition in paragraph (2) and, in addition, one of its own.
  • Article 1(4) and (5) and Article 3 of the annex, read against Article 207(4) of Law no. 198/2023. All teaching obligations are expressed as a percentage of a load, and paragraph (5) closes the calculation by rounding „fracțiunile de oră” (fractions of an hour) down, so it assumes that the load is a number of hours. Under points (a), (b) and (c) of Article 207(4), the load of pre-school teachers, early childhood education teachers and primary school teachers is not a number of hours but one post for each group or class; Article LVIII(a) of Law no. 141/2025 defines it the same way. The order cites only points (b), (d) and (f) of Article LVIII, that is precisely those expressed in hours, yet Article 3(2)(b) and (c) and (3)(b) and (c) refer expressly to units with pre-school and early childhood children, so the act applies to nursery directors too. For such a director, who is a pre-school teacher or an early childhood education teacher, the text indicates no quantity from which 40% could be taken, and the result cannot be expressed in hours.

Editorial analysis

The problem the order solves is real and long-standing. The director of a small rural school ran an institution with a budget, staff, procurement, authorisations and reports and, at the same time, taught a full load, that is as many hours as a teacher who runs nothing. The old order, the one from 27 August, left the situation untouched: below 100 children, no relief at all. The new act settles it in a single move, bringing the obligation down to 8 hours. That is the change that really matters in this act, even though it is announced nowhere as such, because the new text does not say what it replaces, it merely repeals.

The first observation you do not get from reading the order end to end is that the move from hours to percentages has shifted a variable from one place to another. In the old system, how much a director taught depended on their school: size, affiliated units, boarding house, levels of education. In the new one it depends, to a large extent, on what the director teaches. Two people running two identical technological upper secondary schools, with 600 pupils each, end up with 8 and 10 hours a week respectively if one is a history teacher, with a load of 20 hours, and the other a master instructor, with a load of 26. The two-hour difference has nothing to do with the work of running a school. Rounding down sharpens the effect in the opposite direction for those with a heavy load: 40% of 26 is 10.4 hours, which becomes 10, that is 38.5% in reality, while the history teacher teaches exactly 40%. The larger the load, the smaller the effective percentage, but the larger the absolute number of hours.

The second observation comes from comparing the two orders position by position. No category teaches more than before. All of them teach less, and the differences run from two hours, for guidance and control inspectors, to twelve, for directors of small schools. In a year in which the same administration raised the ordinary teacher’s load from 18 to 20 hours through Law no. 141/2025, the direction taken for management staff is precisely the opposite. That is not necessarily an inconsistency, because running a school really does take time, but it is a policy choice the act explains nowhere and that the approval report, which is not published, ought to have justified. The cost shows up only in the negative: the hours freed up stay in the staffing schedule, have to be taught by someone else and, under Article 10(1), have to be covered from the budget already approved.

The third observation concerns the calendar, and there things genuinely fail to add up. Article 10(2) of Law no. 198/2023 provides that any amendment to the law enters into force on the first day of the following school year. Parliament expressly derogated from that rule in Article IV of Law no. 182/2026, precisely so that the ceilings would catch the 2026-2027 school year, and secured entry into force on 31 August, a week before classes began. The minister signed the implementing order the same day, 31 August. The text then sat for 15 days before reaching the Official Gazette of Romania, where it appeared on 15 September, eight days after the children had gone back to class on 7 September. Parliament’s haste was cancelled out by an administrative interval. During those eight days, schools applied the order of 27 August, the only one in force, and the staffing decisions taken then no longer match the current grid. The act has no transitional provision, but it does have, in Article 10(2), a lever through which the ministry can seek the withdrawal of acts issued without observing the rules. The text draws no distinction by date of issue.

The fourth observation is about deadlines, and it is the one that shows the balance of power most clearly. Schools and inspectorates have to apply the grid from day one, 15 September. The ministry sets itself no deadline for anything: the procedure on equivalent activities, without which the people covered by Article 8 do not know what they are supposed to do, is approved by the secretary of state, with no date; the order listing by name the 90 relieved union officials and each one’s percentage, under Article 9(7), has no date; and Article 11, which changes the names of institutions, is tied to „data reorganizării inspectoratelor școlare” (the date of the reorganisation of the school inspectorates), an event with no deadline in this act. Reports are required monthly from the relieved union officials and every six months from federation presidents, but the ministry undertakes to publish nothing about how those 90 teaching loads, meaning up to 1,800 teaching hours a week, are actually used.

Finally, a point of drafting technique with no legal consequence, but which shows how the act was put together. Article 1(6) freezes, on 1 September, „numărul de formațiuni de studiu, de elevi, preșcolari și antepreșcolari, precum și celelalte elemente utilizate la stabilirea obligației de predare” (the number of study groups, pupils, pre-school and early childhood children, and the other elements used in setting the teaching obligation). The number of study groups is used nowhere in the new rules: Article 3 works exclusively with the number of children. That criterion came from the repealed order, where it really did decide the outcome. It has stayed in the text as a trace of the previous version.

What should be changed

  • Rewrite Article 3(3) as an exception to paragraphs (1) and (2), or introduce a rule on which one prevails. Effect: a unit that ticks a condition in each paragraph receives a single percentage rather than two, and the inspectorate no longer decides on its own authority whether the director teaches 6 or 7 hours a week.
  • Set out expressly the basis of calculation for teaching positions whose load is defined as a post rather than in hours: pre-school teachers, early childhood education teachers and primary school teachers. Effect: directors of nurseries and primary schools can find out from the act how many hours they have to teach, instead of depending on a local interpretation of what 40% of a post means.
  • Add a transitional provision on the staffing decisions drawn up between 27 August and 15 September 2026, under the repealed order. Effect: schools know whether to redo those decisions from the date of publication or from the start of the school year, and Article 10(2) can no longer be read as a basis for withdrawing acts that were lawful when they were issued.
  • Set a deadline for the secretary of state’s procedure under Article 8 and for the order listing the relieved union officials under Article 9(7). Effect: the obligations the ministry imposes on schools from day one are matched by deadlines for its own instruments, and staff who cannot be given a teaching obligation are not left without applicable rules.
  • Bring back a complexity criterion alongside the number of children, such as affiliated units or the number of education levels. Effect: the director who runs five buildings is no longer treated exactly like the one with a single building and the same number of pupils, as was the case under the 2026 order this one repeals.
  • Name centres of excellence expressly in Article 4, alongside palaces, clubs and county centres for educational resources and assistance. Effect: their position no longer depends on a cross-reference to Article 51 of Law no. 198/2023, and the directors of those centres, named expressly in the repealed order, find their category in the text that applies to them.

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. 778 of 15 September 2026 16 pages PDF, 115 KB the act starts on page 14

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