European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System

The European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) is a standard means for comparing academic credits, i.e., the "volume of learning based on the defined learning outcomes and their associated workload" for higher education across the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). ECTS credits are awarded for successfully completed studies, with the basic definition being that one full time academic year corresponds to a total of 60 ECTS credits; typically this corresponds to an annual workload of 1,500 to 1,800 hours, although this can vary as defined by national regulations. It results in a corresponding equivalence of one ECTS credit for each 25 to 30 hours of work. However, it is the correspondence to the academic year, rather than the hours worked, that is defining.

ECTS credits originated within the European Union's Erasmus programme in 1989 as a method of transferring credit earned during study abroad back to students' home institutions; since 2015 it has been part of the EHEA. ECTS originally included a standard ECTS grading scale, intended to be shown in addition to local (i.e., national) standard grades, but this was dropped in 2009 in favour of institutions instead providing a grade distribution table showing the statistical distribution of grades in their national or institutional system. ECTS credits describe the volume of learning, with the level of learning being defined by institutional systems that are referenced to national qualifications frameworks and international frameworks such as the EHEA's Framework for Qualifications of the European Higher Education Area and the EU's European Qualifications Framework for Lifelong Learning.