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COMPLETE NATIONAL OVERVIEW
Legal System
The Portuguese education system is organized according to a set of structures and diverse action programmes led by under the responsibility of different institutions, state-owned and private, aiming at the right to education for all.
The Ministry of Education coordinates the education policies independently from the institutions that are part of it.
The general and specific principles upon which the organization of the Portuguese education system is based in Comprehensive Law relating to the Education System (46/86 of 14th October) and a proposal of an amendment to it is waiting to be approved.
Portuguese education system is composed of kindergarten and pre-school, school education and further education. School education covers basic, secondary and higher education and also some specific kinds of structures among which special needs education.
The legal framework of special needs education at basic and secondary levels is sustained by the provisions set in set Law nº 319/91 of 23rd August and by Law 6/2001 of 18th January, the legal tools that protect the rights of SNE pupils and their opportunity to have access to mainstream schools.
A set of measures meant to address the special needs of these pupils are devised in Law nº 105/97 of 1st July with the amendments introduced by Law nº 10856/2005 of 13th May, which establishes plans of intervention focused upon the school, as the centre of the educational actions, extended through support nets of educational and training resources.
Financing
Portuguese public education finances are supported by the state budget, mainly by the Ministry of Education. However, there is also state funding allocated by the Ministry of Interior – via State Department for Local Administration – to Local Government, which concern the building and maintenance of kindergarten, pre-school and primary schools, equipment and materials for common use.
There are other sources of financing such as programmes co-financed by European Union, dealing with the improvement of educational infrastructures, new technologies and professional training.
State education also includes Education/Training courses applied to youngs and adults in the period of transition for active life, jointly financed by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs – via State Department for Employment and Professional Training.
In private sectors of education there are funds supplied by the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, State Department for Social Security, through the Regional Centres of Social Security which fully or partially support the education cost of families with poor economic resources.
The Ministry of Education finances special education in Portuguese mainstream education institutions at the different education levels in an indirect way, paying the salaries of special education teachers and other professionals (psychologists, therapists, sign language trainers and interpreters), providing specific materials, paying for nutritional supplements, transport, specific equipment and professional aid.
In private mainstream schools, state grants for special education are restricted to kindergarten and pre-school, with special education teachers and other professionals (therapists) working there but being paid by the Ministry of Education with which they have a commitment. At the other education levels, special education cost is supported by families and, in the case of families with poor economic resources, by the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, State Department for Social Security, through the Regional Centres of Social Security that fully or partially cover those financial commitments.
As far as special education institutions are concerned there are the public and the private ones.
The Ministry of Education pays a financial support, per student, for teachers and other professionals’ salaries, for food, transport and school material, in public institutions, according to current legislation. The private institutions may agree a contract in co-operation with the Ministry of Education based upon legal requirements in order to benefit from some sort of state grant, per student’ concerning food and transport.
Identification of Special Educational Needs
In those cases where special educational needs result from low frequency and high intensity problems – those with strong probability of a biological inborn or congenital aetiology - detected at an early stage, their identification is usually carried out by medical services or by family. Whenever children enter mainstream schools unidentified, their class teacher has the responsibility of a first identification, then of informing the headmaster of the school or school clusters.
Following the first identification the necessary arrangements are made in order to submit the child to a multidisciplinary team of specialized professionals according to each particular situation (specialized teachers, psychologists, therapists, among others) who will assess the pupil’s needs and make the appropriate decisions about the measures and particular resources required for the pupil.
Special needs education within the Education System
Underlying the organization of special education is the principle that mainstream schools should effectively meet each pupil’s needs, no matter their differences.
Both educational policies and practice aim at planning the appropriate setting within the mainstream education system that should allow the inclusion of SEN pupils in a way that restrictive measures only should be applied when every possibility of adaptation had failed.
Special education is organized in a continuity of responses between groupings/classes and specialized units, which support inclusion and work in reference schools. Only in exceptional circumstances when mainstream education has confirmed not to be able to supply pupils with the educational responses they need, are they allowed to attend special schools. Special education institutions are gradually changing into resource centres where specialized technicians and equipment and also teacher training are available to mainstream schools through partnership agreements.
Kindergarten/Pre-School
Early identification of special needs in young children is mostly a responsibility of the medical services and it enables the activation of intervention mechanisms even before children enter the school system. After the identification, the Ministry of Education provides special education teachers to support those children either in kindergarten/pre-school or at home.
Some multidisciplinary teams (including technicians from several ministries: education, health, social security) called early childhood intervention teams, work mostly with families. Their aim is to address the needs of the families as well as to strengthen their self-competences for active intervention in the strategies of support for their children.
Compulsory Education
Compulsory education covers 9 years of schooling and lasts from 6 years of age to 15, these limits are not applied to special education learners.
In order to adapt the learning process to the needs of these learners, the legislation foresees a set of measures for each particular case materialized in:
- providing the support of specialized professionals ( special education teachers, counsellors, mobility professionals, sign language trainers and interpreters, therapists, psychologists, and so on);
- the use of specific equipment and tools (books in Braille, books with enlarged characters, optical and hearing devices, adapted software, and so on);
- defining special conditions for the process of evaluation (type of test, type of pupils’ ways to express themselves, timetables, place and time of the test);
- differentiating the curriculum (by replacing, introducing, removing aims, contents, activities).
All the changes and adaptations appear in the Individual Educational Plan. Whenever the adaptations are considerable and do not fit within the national curriculum, a Individual Programme has to be made.
SEN learners’ academic progress depends on the items established for general evaluation according to the aims and competences in mainstream regimes.
If pupils have an Individual Programme theirs evaluation follows what is set on their Individual Programme, meaning that their progress does not depend on the competences set for the grade they attend and it allows them to stay in the same group/class.
Transition Period
The two last years in school, for the pupils with severe disabilities that put at risk their acquisition of the knowledge and the competences inherent to compulsory education, are a vocational training for the future active life. In this circumstance the Individual Educational Plan is called a Transition Plan where a project for the pupil’s future life is defined alongside his/her competences, abilities and desires as well as his/her parents’ expectations.
These pupils’ curriculum also aims to develop labour competences and to prepare them for employment within a certain professional field. In some cases these competences are developed inside the school, in other cases in workshops for professional training in connection with special education institutions and, in other situations, partnership with local enterprises is established to enable the development of labour competences in this context.
Teacher Training
Teacher training covers initial, specialized and lifelong training.
Initial Training
Kindergarten/pre-school and primary education teachers’ initial training lasts for four years, including a professional training in state or private Colleges of Higher Education leading a degree. Teachers also can graduate from a public or private University and be permitted to teach a specific subject or group of subjects. Secondary education teachers’ training also takes four years at a state or private University and also includes a professional training, leading to a degree. These teachers are awarded qualifications to teach specific areas.
Specialized Training
Kindergarten/pre-school, primary and secondary education teachers can specialize in some areas (e.g. special education, counselling, pedagogical supervising, school administration, curriculum development, and so on).
This type of training lasts for one or two years and takes place at public or private Colleges of Higher Education, it is equivalent to a post-graduation and awards teachers professional qualifications allowing them to work in specialized areas.
Lifelong Training
Kindergarten/pre-school, primary and secondary education teachers may apply to additional different training modalities to update and broaden their knowledge as well as their skills – training courses, action programmes, workshops, studies circle, conferences, among others. The duration depends on the type of training modality chosen.
Lifelong training can be implemented by higher education institutions, by school clusters in training centres, by training centres of scientific or professional associations, by central or local administration centres, all of them accredited by the Scientific Pedagogical Council for Lifelong Training. Training boards are either of public or of private nature and teachers or others, with relevant curriculum vitae concerning a particular area and suitably accredited, can be chosen as trainers. Lifelong training modalities entitle those who attend them to a certificate and to some credits vital to the progress in their career as teachers.
Development of Integration/ Inclusion
Since 1990s Portugal has been improving best conditions for SEN pupils to access mainstream education and also to benefit from quality learning.
Nowadays inclusive school basic principles – based upon humanistic beliefs concerned with people’s rights, equity and social justice – are unquestionable. Teachers, parents and politicians recognize that traditional, formal models can lead to segregation and discrimination making social and educational integration difficult for disabled people. However, in order to maintain and develop quality education for these pupils it is important not only to preserve the availability of specialized human resources and specific tools but also to implement severe changes in the schools organization and in pedagogical practice.
This is not a direct process and although inclusive education principles are considered unquestionable, there are some weaknesses in the way they are put into practice. The concept of special educational needs apply to every child or young person showing any learning difficulty any time during their academic life. Due to its very comprehensive nature, it has created some problems in schools during detection of needs and in the process of evaluation. In effect, lying on value principles, it can assume different meanings in different contexts, allowing some pupils to be considered as SEN pupils even if they don’t show any considerable problem. Others pupils that really have special needs sometimes are not being conveniently cared of.
These aspects have raised some voices who argue about the lack of conditions in mainstream schools to meet the needs of these learners, highlighting the difficulty in getting specialized resources and the lack of specialized mainstream teachers’ training as effective obstacles to inclusive practice.
This division of opinions does not aim at bringing back the traditional models, but to improve the quality of education offered to SEN pupils in mainstream school settings.
Quality Indicators for Special Needs Education
General Supervision of Education, a central service of the Ministry of Education, bears the responsibility for monitoring the quality in education as far as every school is concerned, independently from its nature and educational level. This is carried out by means of methods of systematic monitoring and by examining educational practices, teachers’ professional attitude and integration of the school in the local community.
General Directory of Innovation and Curriculum Development, another central service of the Ministry of Education, has a permanent observatory for educational support which yearly collects data that permit to characterize and to monitor the education system in the field of special education.
Regional education services of the Ministry of Education also have the responsibility for follow up and monitoring led by teams of co-ordination of educational support.
View the SNE data for Portugal [opens in new browser window]
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