INFORMATION ABOUT ECTS

What is ECTS?

ECTS, the European Credit Transfer System, was developed by the Commission of the European Communities in order to provide common procedures to guarantee academic recognition of studies abroad. It provides a way of measuring and comparing learning achievements, and transferring them from one institution to another. This is achieved through the use of a common ECTS credit unit and a common ECTS grading scale. ECTS also improves access to information on foreign curricula.

The use of ECTS is voluntary and is based on mutual trust and confidence between the participating higher education institutions. The information package provides general information of the host institution and descriptions of the available courses. The transcript of records shows every course taken and completed by the student and the ECTS credits and the grades according to the local grading scale.

These documents are used by the institutional and departmental co-ordinators, appointed by each institution to deal with administrative and academic aspects of ECTS. It is their role to advise and counsel students who wish to participate in ECTS.

ECTS credits

In ECTS, 60 credits represent the workload of a year of study; normally 30 credits are given for a semester. ECTS credits 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 to contact hours only. Credits are awarded only when the course has been completed and all required examinations have been successfully taken.

ECTS credits are a relative rather than an absolute measure of student workload. They only specify how much of a year's workload a course unit represents at the institution or department allocating the credits. ECTS credits ensure that the programme will be reasonable in terms of workload for the period of study abroad, for example, a student whose choice of course units results in a programme of study totalling 120 ECTS credits for an academic year would have to work twice as much as an average local student at the receiving institution; and a student whose programme of study totals 30 ECTS credits for a whole academic year would be undertaking much less than the average local student and would in effect be studying part-time.

ECTS Students

The students participating in ECTS will receive full credit for all academic work successfully carried out at any of the ECTS partner institutions and they will be able to transfer these academic credits from one participating institution to another on the basis of prior agreement on the content of study programmes abroad between students and the institutions involved.

When the student has successfully completed the study programme previously agreed between the home and host institutions and returns to the home institution, credit transfer will take place, and the student will continue the study programme at the home institution without any loss of time or credit. Students selected by each institution to participate in ECTS may only be awarded a student mobility grant if they fulfil the general conditions of eligibility for the ERASMUS grant. These are:

• Students must be citizens of one of the EC member state or citizens of one of the EFTA countries.
• Students shall not be required to pay tuition fee at the host institution. The student may, however, be required to continue to pay his/her normal tuition fees to the home institution during the stay abroad.
• The national grant/loan to which a student may entitled for study at his/her institution may not be discontinued, interrupted or reduced while the student is studying in another Member State and is receiving an ERASMUS grant.
• One study period abroad should not last less than three months or more than twelve months. Students in the first year of their studies are not eligible for receiving ERASMUS grants.