Portugal's New Inclusive-Education Law Gives Parents Fixed Deadlines, a Single Plan and an Appeal Route From January

The new rules on how Portuguese schools support children with additional needs are now law. Decreto-Lei n.º 208/2026, published in the Diário da República (the official gazette) on Tuesday 3 November, rewrites the 2018 inclusive-education regime, Decreto-Lei n.º 54/2018, and takes effect on 1 January 2027 (full text, Portuguese only). It applies to state schools, to private, cooperative and charity-run schools, to vocational schools and to pre-school education.

The Council of Ministers approved the decree on 30 July, as we reported in August. President António José Seguro promulgated it on 23 October. The published text now sets out the deadlines, the parents' rights and the transition rules that families will deal with in practice.

One plan instead of three documents

The centrepiece is the Plano de Desenvolvimento Integral (PDI, Integral Development Plan): a single, individual document that follows the child to the end of compulsory schooling. It replaces, step by step, the three documents schools use today: the Relatório Técnico-Pedagógico (technical and pedagogical report), the Programa Educativo Individual (individual education programme) and the Plano Individual de Transição (individual transition plan).

The changeover is gradual. From 1 January 2027 to the end of the 2026/2027 school year, a PDI is drawn up only for children newly identified as needing support. For every other child, the existing documents stay valid until the end of that school year.

A PDI is required whenever a child needs "selective" or "additional" support measures, the two upper levels of the system. It must describe the child's strengths, interests and needs, the barriers to learning, each measure with its frequency, the staff and materials to be mobilised, how progress will be measured, and how moves between school cycles will be planned.

The deadlines

• Three working days after a need is flagged, the members of the school's Equipa Multidisciplinar de Apoio à Educação Inclusiva (EMAEI, multidisciplinary inclusive-education team) responsible for the first review must decide how to handle it. One of them must be the school psychologist.
• Two working days after a case is passed to the EMAEI, its coordinator must name a Gestor de Apoio à Inclusão (inclusion support manager) and ask for the PDI. That person is preferably the child's pre-school teacher, class teacher or form tutor, but can be the special-education teacher, the psychologist or another professional who works directly with the child.
• Five working days are allowed for parents, and the child where age and maturity allow, to sign the finished PDI. They can attach comments and the reasons for any disagreement.
• Ten working days after that, the school director must ratify the PDI and put its measures in place.

The plan must be reviewed in time for its measures to apply from the first day of each school year.

What parents can do

Parents and guardians have the right, and the duty, to flag a possible need to the EMAEI coordinator, with any documents they hold, to attend EMAEI meetings on their child's case, to take part in drawing up and evaluating the PDI, to consult their child's individual file and to ask for the measures in the PDI to be reviewed. A flag can also come from teachers, technicians or other services that work with the child. The decree gives children a right to be heard in decisions about their schooling, according to their age, maturity and capacity, and requires schools to give families clear and complete information.

There is a new appeal route. If parents disagree with the selective or additional measures a school proposes, and mediation fails, they can ask the regional coordination subcommission to look at the decision again, by written request setting out their reasons. This route only opens once those regional subcommissions are working; the decree gives no date for that.

Where the school decides a child's needs can be met with "universal" measures in the ordinary classroom, the decision is communicated to parents by the class teacher or form tutor. Universal measures, such as small-group work or tutoring, can involve the special-education teacher or a psychologist without an EMAEI decision or parental authorisation.

Pupils on three of the additional measures (significant curricular adaptations, structured teaching methods, and work on personal and social autonomy) keep priority in enrolling at the school their parents prefer, regardless of where they live.

Support in the classroom, not a separate room

The decree repeals the provisions on the Centros de Apoio à Aprendizagem (learning support centres). In its preamble, the Government says schools had turned them into physical rooms, against the 2018 law's intent. Support is now to happen "primarily" in ordinary classrooms, with work outside the classroom only by exception. Specific spaces are not banned, the preamble says, but they are no longer the centre of the system.

For high-ability pupils, the "differentiated curricular pathways" measure is aimed at enrichment and deepening learning. In exceptional cases, with the ministry's approval, it can include faster progression through school.

Health, social security and local teams

The decree creates a Sistema Nacional de Apoio à Inclusão (SNAI, National Inclusion Support System) that joins up the education, health and social security ministries. It runs through a national coordinator, regional subcommissions and Equipas Locais de Apoio à Inclusão (ELAI, local inclusion support teams). The ELAI take over cases that need specialised resources across those sectors and are responsible for universal early intervention in childhood. The Centros de Recursos para a Inclusão (CRI, resource centres for inclusion), the charity-run centres that send therapists into schools, are to support the ELAI and the schools.

Much of this still needs further rules. How the SNAI is organised and run will be set in a separate decree. Until it is, early intervention continues under the current law, and the school EMAEI teams do the ELAI's job. A national network of Centros de Competências para a Acessibilidade e a Inclusão (accessibility and inclusion competence centres), which assess children for assistive products and prescribe them, will take over from the current ICT resource centres for special education; until it is set up, the existing centres keep working. The decree calls access to assistive products a right. Rules on how the CRI work also come in a separate act, and their funding this school year is still a live question.

Leaving school

For young people on significant curricular adaptations, the PDI must plan the move to adult life: further study, vocational training, work, independent living or social services. Planning must start at least three years before the end of compulsory schooling age. One year before, the plan must set down what the young person will actually move on to, and who is responsible for providing it. On leaving, the PDI can be passed to the next school, training body or service if the young person or guardian asks.

No loss of support

The decree states that applying the new rules cannot lead to any child losing the rights or support already granted. The Government has 90 days from the decree's entry into force to set, by ordinance, the statistics used to monitor the policy. The education ministry must evaluate the reform three years after the SNAI's own decree takes effect, and publish the results.

School directors told us in August that the staff to run the reform are not yet in place. Families who need a placement near home can also look at how one family went to court and won in September.