With a strengthened budget proposal (OE2026) compared to last year, the Government outlines projects to allocate 7.5 billion euros for Education and nearly four billion euros for Higher Education, Science, and Innovation.
The total of 11.467 billion euros aims to “ensure equal opportunities for access to quality education across the national territory, and to generate and transform talent and knowledge into social and economic value,” according to the proposal submitted to parliament today.
To enhance learning among younger students, the Government plans to allocate 930 million euros. Nearly half of this amount (457 million) is designated to support the inclusion and integration of students, including immigrants as key beneficiaries.
The OE2026 proposal notes a gradual increase in foreign students in Portuguese schools, reaching 157,000 in the last academic year, and emphasizes the importance of providing them with the necessary support to achieve success.
The plan is to increase the “percentage of newly arrived foreign students from countries outside the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP) with the support of linguistic and cultural mediators,” the document explains.
Additionally, more psychologists will be present in schools, according to the proposal that funds the inclusion of these professionals in school group frameworks. This week, the Education Minister pledged to increase the psychologist-to-student ratio, which is expected to improve to one psychologist per 700 students next year.
Academic success for students enrolled in professional and artistic courses is also prioritized, with a budget of 422 million euros intended to raise course completion rates and the number of students progressing to higher education.
However, improvements in learning will benefit all students, with the success of some measures to be assessed by the results in assessment tests (MODA) for fourth and ninth grades. The OE2026 proposal specifies that there should be more students achieving better results.
The Ministry of Education, Science, and Innovation will have 6.2 billion euros to enhance and attract human resources, focusing on teachers who were hired by schools but did not teach in the previous academic year. Additionally, this budget will reinforce partnerships with the private, cooperative, social, and solidarity sectors to increase the percentage of children enrolled in preschool at age three.
For higher education, over 2.8 billion euros will support initiatives to reduce dropout rates, increase adult participation in higher education, offer more scholarships, and secure more accommodations for displaced students.
The document notes that a new social action system should begin next academic year, which “should consider all costs of attending higher education, being transparent and efficient.”
Access to accommodation for displaced students should extend “beyond the socioeconomic condition of the students, allowing for consideration of economic vulnerability that traditional scholarship criteria do not capture, promoting a fairer and more inclusive policy, favoring the integration and success of students,” the OE2026 proposal states.
The Government acknowledges the importance of revising the social action system and increasing the availability of student residences to “contribute to reducing the costs of accessing higher education, particularly for families with lower socioeconomic conditions.”
The new social action model “should ensure access for students to higher education regardless of their socioeconomic background.”
