ECTSpoäng

ECTSpoäng, often written as ECTS-poäng or ECTS credits, are a standardized measure of student workload used by European higher education institutions to describe the amount of work required to complete courses and programs. The system was developed to facilitate transfer and recognition of study results across borders as part of the Bologna Process.

Each course or module is assigned a certain number of ECTSpoäng. A single credit typically corresponds to about 25 to 30 hours of total work, including classes, self-study, assignments, and examination preparation. A full-time academic year is usually worth 60 ECTS, corresponding to roughly 1,500 to 1,800 hours of work.

Typical degree structures use ECTSpoäng totals such as 180-240 ECTS for a bachelor's degree and 60-120 ECTS for a master's degree, depending on the country and program. Transcripts list earned ECTSpoäng, and programs may use the European ECTS grading scale (A-F) or local grade systems; ECTSpoäng themselves focus on workload and transferability rather than grades.

ECTSpoäng are widely used in European higher education, particularly for student mobility schemes such as Erasmus, and enable the recognition of completed study units across institutions. While the system is broadly standardized, national implementation and documentation practices can vary, and the accuracy of workload estimates can differ between courses.

History: Developed in the late 1980s by the European Community and refined under the Bologna Process; today ECTSpoäng underpin cross-border degree frameworks and credit transfer.