ECTS credits (European Credit Transfer System) is an academic credit system used to determine a student’s workload that he/she spends on a specific subject, a group of subjects, or an entire study program. ECTS makes educational achievements more straightforward and equivalent to the education system of other countries.

Why is ECTS needed?

If a student receives one degree in one country and desires to pursue a second degree in another country, then ECTS credits are needed. For example, if George completed his bachelor’s in Germany and he wants to pursue a master’s in Sweden. Then he requires to calculate ECTS credits to prove that his bachelor’s degree is equivalent to a Swedish bachelor and he is eligible to pursue a master’s degree in a Swedish university.

Benefits of ECTS credits conversion:

The ECTS credit system’s excellence is that it makes a degree more worthy, so it is accepted worldwide. Often students who desire to study in Germany want to convert their educational achievement in ECTS credits. So, they always ask about the advantages of ECTS credits. These are the topmost benefits of ECTS credit conversion:

• You can easily study one degree in one country and second in another country. e.g a bachelor in UK and master in Germany.
• You make your academic records more transparent and simple.
• It merges all your educational efforts e.g lectures, homework, labs, and seminars, etc.
• It makes your degree equivalent to the education system of other countries and reduces the distinction between international and local students.
• It helps to find a job in Germany and other EU countries.

How to calculate ECTS credits?

You have to understand some basic points before the calculation of ECTS credit points. Suppose your degrees are from those universities previously using the ECTS credit system and mention calculated credit-points on the final mark-sheets. In that case, you don’t oblige to recalculate them. Use the same ECTS credit-points (that written on the degree) where they require to mention.

In case, when your university didn’t mention ECTS credit points on your mark-sheet then you can calculate ECTS credits. Here two things to keep in mind.

If you desire to know about total ECTS credit points to get admission to a German university, follow this common rule in which 60 ECTS credit points are allocated to 1 year of studies.

For example, if you completed 4 years of bachelor’s in your country then generally your 4 years bachelor’s degree will be equivalent to (4 x 60) 240 ECTS credit points. If you desire to take admission to Technical University Berlin and their admission requirement is 180 ECTS credit points, you are eligible because you already have 240 ECTS credit points.

Secondly, suppose TU Berlin distributes the admission requirements into different modules and demands 60 ECTS credit points for the mathematics module and 10 ECTS credit points for the economics module. In that case, you can calculate ECTS credit points for each module by using this method.

Aa per ECTS credit system:

30 study hours (=) 1 ECTS credit point

So utilize this main formula to calculate specific ECTS credits points.

Lecture hours per week x Number of weeks per semester +
Self study hours per week x Number of weeks per semester = Grand total / 30 hrs

We can relate an example for a better conclusion. Suppose George wants to calculate the ECTS credit point for one subject ‘Marketing’. According to his university rules, a typical 3 credit hour marketing course is delivered in 48 teaching hours that include lectures, examinations, assignments, seminars, and research projects.

He attends the marketing course lectures 3 hours per week in a semester and also spends 3-hours per week as a self-study. Here one semester is roughly equal to 16-weeks. Now, if we use this data in the above-mentioned formula then the result will look like this.

3 x 16 + 3 x 16 = 96 / 30 = 3.2 CP, approximately 3 ECTS credit points for Marketing subject.

You can calculate ECTS credit points for all the subjects of a module in a similar way and then make a sum of all points. For example, if George studied 19 mathematical subjects in a four-year bachelor program and each subject has 3.2 CP then total ECTS credit points will be (3.2 x 19 = 60.8 CP) approximately 60.

Which countries accept ECTS credits?

The following top countries are using and accepting the ECTS credit point system.

FAQ