Memorandum by Dr Paolo Dardanelli Lecturer
in European Politics and responsible for four-year programmes,
Department of Politics and International Relations, University
of Kent
1. In relation to the Sub-Committee request
for information from individuals having direct experience of current
EU education and training programmes, I would like to comment
on the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS). I have several
years of experience dealing with four-year undergraduate degrees
involving one year spent in another European country. I present
these comments in a personal capacity.
2. Increasing student mobility between EU
countries is one of the central objectives of EU action in the
field of higher education. As far as the UK is concerned, mobility
usually takes place in the framework of four-year BAs including
the study of a major European language—French, Spanish,
German, Italian being the most popular—under which students
spend the third year at a partner university in a country where
their chosen language is spoken. Marks obtained in this year abroad
are then "translated" into UK grades and incorporated
into the student's record. They then contribute to the student's
final degree classification.
3. Given the need to "translate"
workload and marks from another system into the UK system, issues
of equivalence and fairness naturally arise. The ECTS system was
developed to address these issues and, quoting from the official
documentation at my institution, "to provide common procedures
to guarantee academic recognition of studies abroad. It provides
a way of measuring and comparing learning and transferring them
from one institution to another". The ECTS works on the basis
of so-called "credits", which are intended to be a "common
currency" with which to measure workloads and achievements.
Quoting again from my institution's official documentation, "ECTS
credits are a value allocated to module units to describe the
student workload required to complete them. They reflect the quantity
of work each module requires in relation to the total quantity
of work required to complete a full year of academic study at
the institution, that is lectures, practical work, seminars, private
work—in the library or at home—and examinations and
assessment activities".
4. While the intentions of the system are
laudable, its operation is more problematic. Most universities
across the European Union have now adopted the ECTS system but
they appear to still measure student workloads differently so
that ECTS credits although nominally equivalent still vary in
practice so that 30 credits obtained at a Spanish university reflect
a very different amount of work to 30 credits obtained at a British
institution. The discrepancy appears to be greater between the
UK system and the main continental ones than among the latter.
It seems to be mainly due to the different way in which modules
are delivered and, especially, to the different ways in which
individual study is taken into account. In the French, Italian
and Spanish systems, for instance, modules are entirely based
on lectures and assessed mainly through exams in contrast to the
greater balance between lectures and seminars and between exams
and coursework in the British system. This leads to what appears
to be the crux of the matter: individual study is fully factoring
in in the British system while it is largely left out in the main
continental systems. To take a fairly extreme case, for example,
an MA module consisting of 24 contact hours is worth two ECTS
credits at one of our French partner universities while our MA
modules with 24 contact hours are worth 10 ECTS credits.
5. I believe the different ways in which
ECTS credits are calculated fatally undermines the system and
defies its purpose of, as seen above, providing a "common
currency" for European higher education. In turn, this places
a significant burden on those British institutions that are committed
to expand their range of partnership with their continental counterparts
and offer more and more British students the opportunity to study
in another EU country within the framework of their degree. This
runs directly counter the effort, enshrined in the Bologna process
and other initiatives, to increased comparability and interchangeability
throughout the European HE sector. The ECTS system, as currently
implemented, needs urgent revision if it is to perform effectively
its important function. Failure to address these problems would
undermine all future endeavours in this field. Before embarking
on new initiatives, I believe it is important that the European
Commission and the relevant national authorities look at the ECTS
system again.
10 January 2005
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