ECTSjärjestelmään

The ECTSjärjestelmän, or European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System, is a standardized system designed to make student mobility and academic recognition easier within the European Higher Education Area. It functions as a unit of measurement for learning, teaching, and achievement in higher education. One ECTS credit is equivalent to approximately 25-30 hours of student work, encompassing lectures, seminars, independent study, project work, and examinations.

The primary goals of ECTS are to enhance transparency and facilitate the transfer of credits between different institutions and countries. This system allows students to spend part of their studies abroad and have the academic recognition of their learning effectively guaranteed by their home institution. ECTS also helps in the planning of study programs and provides a common language for describing course content and learning outcomes. It is a crucial component of the Bologna Process, which aims to create a more comparable and coherent European higher education landscape. While ECTS credits represent student workload, they are not directly equivalent to a grade, although they are often used in conjunction with grading scales.