A Common Language for Academic Recognition

The European Community promotes inter-university cooperation as a means of improving the quality of education for the benefit of students and institutions of higher education. Student mobility is a predominant element of this inter-university cooperation. The Erasmus Program clearly demonstrates that studying abroad can be a particularly valuable experience, as it is the best way to learn about other countries, ideas, languages and cultures. Increasingly, it is also becoming an important element in academic and professional career development.

The recognition of studies and degrees is a prerequisite for the creation of an Open European area of education and training where students and teachers can move without obstacles. As a result, the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) was developed as a means of improving academic recognition for studying abroad.

ECTS provides an instrument to create transparency, to build bridges between institutions and to widen the choices available to students. The system makes it easier for institutions to recognize the learning achievements of students through the use of commonly understood measures - credits and grades - and it also provides a means to interpret national systems of higher education. ECTS is based on three core elements:

• information (on study programs and student achievement)
• mutual agreement (between the partner institutions and the student)
• the use of ECTS credits (to indicate student workload)

What are ECTS credits?

ECTS credits are a numerical value (between 1 and 60) assigned to course units to describe the workload required to complete them. They reflect the quantity of work each course unit requires in relation to the total quantity of work necessary to complete a full year of academic study at the institution: that is, lectures, practical work, seminars, tutorials, fieldwork, private study - in the library or at home - and examinations or other assessment activities. ECTS is thus based on a full student workload and not limited solely to contact hours.

ECTS credits are a relative rather than absolute measure of student workload. They only specify how much of a year's work a course unit represents at the institution or department allocating the credits.

In ECTS, 60 credits represent the workload of an academic year of study and normally 30 credits for a semester and 20 credits for a term.

ECTS credits ensure that the program will be reasonable in terms of the workload for the period of study abroad.

ECTS Credit Transfer

Home and host institutions prepare and exchange transcripts of records for each student participating in ECTS before and after the period of study abroad. Copies of these transcripts are given to the student for his or her personal file. The home institution recognizes the amount of credit received by their students from partner institutions abroad so that the credits for the course unit passed replace the credits which would have otherwise been obtained from the home institution. The Learning Agreement gives the student a guarantee in advance that the credits for the approved program of study will be transferred.