Navarra regulates home-based educational care for sick students

The Department of Education of the Chartered Community of Navarra has approved the guidelines regulating home-based educational care for sick or convalescing students enrolled in non-university private subsidized educational centers, effective for the 2026-2027 academic year. The regulation, signed on August 10 by the Minister of Education, is published in the Official Gazette of Navarra number 174, dated September 3, 2026, with code BDNS 917226.

The measure guarantees the right to education for minors who, by medical prescription, cannot regularly attend their teaching center, and authorizes a maximum expenditure of 210,000 euros for its financing.

Regulatory Framework and Background

The order is based on Article 27 of the Spanish Constitution, which recognizes the right of all to education, and on Organic Law 2/2006, of May 3, on Education, whose Article 3.9 provides for an adequate offer of support and specific educational care for those who cannot regularly attend centers. It is also framed within Foral Order 69/2023, of August 21, on attention to diversity, and Foral Decree 47/2010, which recognizes the right of students with prolonged illness to minimize the impact of forced deschooling.

The management of this service corresponds to the Resource Center for Educational Equity in Navarra (CREENA), which organizes home care as a specific educational support need, involving families, teaching centers, and the Administration itself.

Recipients and Requirements

Home-based educational care is aimed at students who cannot continue their regular attendance at the center due to medical prescription, provided that their convalescence period exceeds 60 days. Beneficiaries include:

• Students in the 2nd cycle of Early Childhood Education, Primary Education, Compulsory Secondary Education, Vocational Training in any of its modalities, Intermediate Vocational Training Cycles, and Baccalaureate enrolled in private subsidized centers.
• In the post-compulsory stage, those who are no more than 18 years old at the time of the application.
• Students who, due to complications in their gestation process or derived from childbirth, must remain at home by medical prescription for a period exceeding 60 days.
• Students with special educational needs from special education centers or specific structures who must remain at home transitionally, on an exceptional basis and subject to prior approval by the Service for Inclusion, Equality, and Coexistence.

Financing and Budget

The order authorizes a maximum expenditure of 210,000 euros, distributed over two fiscal years:

• 70,000 euros charged to budget line 410003-41600-4811-322402, “Special Educational Needs. Private subsidized and/or grant-aided centers”, of the 2026 budget.
• 140,000 euros charged to the equivalent line created in the 2027 expenditure budget, subject to the existence of adequate and sufficient credit.

The granting of aid is in any case subject to the availability of credit in the aforementioned budget lines.

Impact

With this regulation, Navarra consolidates a stable framework so that minors who are hospitalized or convalescing at home do not lose their school pace nor remain at an academic and emotional disadvantage. Home educational care, articulated around an adapted individual program, reinforces the equity of the educational system and responds to families in subsidized centers, guaranteeing that illness does not translate into an interruption of their right to education.

Source: Official Gazette of Navarra, number 174, September 3, 2026, section 1.4 Subsidies, aid and grants, p. 31562 (official reference: Foral Order 41/2026, BDNS 917226).