Special-Education Colleges Gain a 16% Funding Boost as Three Diplomas Are Gazetted
Portugal is raising the monthly per-pupil payment to private special-education colleges by 16% to €836.60 from September, part of a batch of diplomas that also writes accessibility for students with special needs into the Basic Law on Education.
Portugal's private special-education schools are in line for a significant financial reprieve, after the government published a batch of diplomas in the Diário da República (Republic Gazette) on Thursday that raise the money the State pays for each pupil and shore up a sector that has warned it was struggling to keep the lights on. The headline change is a 16% increase in the monthly amount paid per pupil at the colégios de ensino especial (special-education colleges), which take children referred by the state because they cannot attend mainstream schools.
From September, the State will pay €836.60 per pupil per month, an increase of €120.21 on the current figure. The rise was communicated on Wednesday to the five colleges that hold cooperation contracts with the Ministério da Educação, Ciência e Inovação (Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation, or MECI), institutions that have faced mounting financial difficulties in recent years — difficulties serious enough, they said, to threaten the continued operation of some schools. To underwrite the deal, a Council of Ministers resolution authorises spending of €13.8 million for the 2026-2027 school year on the financial support tied to these cooperation contracts and agreements.
The revised ordinance does more than lift the core per-pupil payment. It also updates the ação social escolar (school social-action) subsidies that help families with day-to-day costs: the meal subsidy rises from €100.30 to €108.02 per pupil per month, while the transport subsidy increases by between €1.89 and €3.71 depending on the bracket. Taken together, the measures are designed to stabilise a specialised network that serves some of the country's most vulnerable students.
Alongside the funding changes came a more far-reaching legal shift. A law passed by the Assembleia da República (Assembly of the Republic) amends the Lei de Bases do Sistema Educativo (Basic Law on the Education System) to guarantee accessibility for students with special educational needs at every level of schooling — and, for the first time, explicitly extends that guarantee to higher education. The text commits the system to ensuring "full access to higher education and the consequent insertion into the labour market" for young people with specific educational needs.
Under the new provisions, higher education is folded into the article governing the organisation of special education, which now states that curricular paths for young people with disabilities studying at higher-education institutions must be adapted to each type and degree of disability, with forms of assessment suited to their specific difficulties. The initiative was proposed by Chega and approved by the opposition in June, rejected only by the governing PSD and its CDS-PP partner — an unusual alignment that pushed a measure through against the government's wishes.
The government also used the same day to renew a broader slice of the private-school framework. A separate Council of Ministers resolution covers the contratos de associação (association contracts) for the cycle running from 2026-2027 to 2028-2029, authorising total spending of €50.5 million over the three years — €3.7 million more than the previous cycle. The executive said the extra money reflects "geographic areas that remain underserved by public school provision", where the State continues to lean on private schools to fill the gap.
