Legal system - Portugal

Historical Overview

As the education system has evolved in Portugal over the years, government initiatives have been taken to deal with individuals and/or groups identified as requiring special education. Some initiatives, no less important from the chronological point of view, will be omitted because they involved no specific, organised social or educational intervention. But an important landmark, was the creation in 1946 of the first special classes in primary schools. Initially these were for children with a physical or mental handicap, but later children with learning difficulties and minor disabilities were included. The António Aurélio da Costa Ferreira Institute was the state institute responsible for giving guidance to these classes and for training the teachers involved.

In the sixties, under the Ministry of Health and Assistance, the Institute for providing Assistance for Minors was created and centres for special education, as well as centres for observation and assessment, were set up. They adopted a medical pedagogic approach and were responsible for detecting, observing and channelling children to schools providing special education or similar provision. The first courses were also organised to give specialist training to teachers.

With the revolution in 1974, which replaced dictatorship with democracy, the parent associations’ movement, aided by specialists and teaching staff, was important in developing many socio-educational activities and in organising and creating schools for handicapped children, particularly the mentally handicapped. At the time, the state already provided some organised response to other types of disability (sensory), although this was neither sufficient nor effective from an educational and social point of view. Therefore it was through these associations and co-operatives being created that the first schools for mentally handicapped children were introduced throughout the country. The most important centres were the Cooperatives for the Education and Rehabilitation of Children with Learning Difficulties, which are still an important partner today in finding solutions for the disabled and, in some cases, a specialised resource serving the educational community.

In the early seventies, the Ministry of Education began to pass legislation that specifically addressed educational structures for ''the handicapped and those with learning difficulties''. To this end it created, within the Ministry itself, the Department for Special Education  to cover Compulsory Education (Basic Education) and the Department of Special and Vocational Education for upper secondary education. Among other attributions and duties, the Ministry decided to give its support to the above mentioned schools and to assume responsibility for providing specialised teacher training for those working with handicapped children, and the courses administered by the António Aurélio da Costa Ferreira Institute were restructured accordingly. Similarly, in the mid-seventies, regional support structures were organised, Special Education Teams were only recognised in 1988 with the publication of Joint Order No. 36/SEAM/SERE/88, which aimed to develop integrated teaching for handicapped children and adolescents with sight, hearing or physical impairment. Some time later this was also approved for the mentally handicapped.

Education for all, based on the protection of individual rights by applying the principle of equal opportunity to education and the criteria of pedagogic and social justice, is expressed clearly through the full participation and co-operation among all those involved in education.

Special Education is guided by the principles enshrined in legislation, which is the Education Act, Law No. 46/86, 14th October, Decree-Law No. 35/90, 25th January; Decree-Law No. 3/2008, 7th January – and the underlying philosophy is based on several international resolutions such as the Salamanca Declaration for Special Education Needs.

These principles can be summarised under three fundamental rights:

• The right to education: all children with special education needs, even as the result of a problem (or problems) in a particular area of development, have the right to education. At compulsory school age, education for children and adolescents with special educational needs, no matter how complex they are, should be provided within the education system.
• The right to equality: the inalienable right of all children to equal opportunity in gaining access to and achieving success in education, without any type of discrimination, and with educational resources and support adequate to the individual needs of each one.
• The right to be part of society: it is a principle that they have the right to attend mainstream schools of education, which from the perspective of school for all, find the right solutions for the needs of each individual. The rule is that preferably these handicapped children should be included in the mainstream teaching system, with the solution of special schools being the exception, only when all means for keeping pupils in the normal school alongside their peers have been exhausted.

For this attempt to enshrine the right, duty and responsibility of the state and civic society in dealing with persons who are handicapped and/or have special learning needs, the development of ideas and scientific and pedagogic research, at national and international level, related to special education was crucial. No less important was the contribution of reformist attitudes that brought about change to the education system from the end of the eighties and expressed in the Education Act. Also important were recommendations made by international bodies on access for handicapped pupils to the mainstream system of education and the experience gleaned over a number of years in which pupils with disabilities have attended mainstream schooling.

Ministry of Education
Ministry of Work and Social Solidarity
Decree-Law No. 3/2008, 7th January
Decree-Law No. 35/90
Law No. 46/86