CREDIT SYSTEM:

INTRODUCTION:
Credit system is a standard used by universities to measure and assess students work and
effort during their Bachelor’s, Master’s or PhD programme. It’s important to understand
how credits work and how credit points from one academic system are converted to credits
from other credit systems. Sometimes students need to take preparation courses in order to
meet starting credit requirements needed for university admission.

DEFINITION:
A credit system is a systematic way of describing an educational programme by attaching
credits to its components. The definition of credits in higher education systems may be
based on different parameters, such as student workload, learning outcomes and contact
hours.

BENEFITS OF ACADEMIC CREDIT SYSTEM:

 Keep track of student process and determine when he or she has met the requirements
for awarding a specific academic degree.
 Offer a good estimate of the workload of a programme and how it is distributed
between the different higher education activities.
 Some academic credit systems permit students to transfer to different programmes and
keep part or all of their previously earned credit points.
 If a student has not graduated a study programme, but wants to find a job, earned
academic credits may be presented to employers as proof of previous studies.
 Some universities use academic study credits to set programme costs.

TYPES OF CREDIT SYSTEMS WORLDWIDE:

1.Academic credit systems in Australia
2.Academic credit systems in the U.S.
3.Academic credit system in Europe

For each course you will take during your degree studies, you will earn a number of credits.
How? You will be assessed by your professor in terms of the amount of knowledge and
skills you will achieve once you complete that course. Common forms of assessment are a
combination of:

 Actual attendance
 Tests taken during the course
 Projects/research work
  Oral/written examination

1.Academic credit systems in Australia:

Australian universities don’t have a unified credit system. Each university calculates the
credits according to workload and number of study hours per each course. Credit transfer is
available for both undergraduate and postgraduate study programmes and it is established
and coordinated by the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF).

2.Academic credit systems in the U.S.:

In the U.S., students receive semester credit hours, which are based on the number of
contact hours accumulated during one semester. Mainly, you have to take around 5 courses
each semester, where each course is worth 3 semester credit hours, the equivalent of 45-48
contact hours. All these would add up to 30 credits per year, the required number to
successfully complete a degree in the U.S.

3.Academic credit system in Europe:

The European credit transfer and Accumulation system is a student -centred system based
on the student workload required to achieve the objectives of a programme, objectives
preferably specified in terms of learning outcomes and competences to be acquired. In
ECTS, a full study year normally consists of 60 credits, so completing a Bachelor’s degree
would require earning 180 credits a Master’s degree would require 120 credit points.

What is a student’s workload?

Workload refers to the specific amount of time it takes to an average student to reach the
desired learning outcome. The workload includes most academic activities such as lectures,
seminars, individual study, exams, etc

What does learning outcome mean?

Learning outcome refers to the level of knowledge students are expected to gain and be
able to apply after completing a process of learning. This may also include skills acquired
they can apply in future professions.

What is a contact hour?

A contact hour usually equal to 50 minutes and refers to a lecture or a lab time , so basically
a teaching class. This may, however, vary between different credit systems.

RESEARCH INPUT:-
A research conducted by Santu Biswas; Department of Education .University of
Kalalyani,W.B.. The efficacy of credit systemcan be understood by findings of who have
conducted a research that revealed, 42% of the teachers agreed that the objective of CBCS
was achieved, 39% felt that they were not met and 18% were uncertain. In response to the
question whether CS emphasizes on only teaching or evaluation, or both, the feedback was
mixed – majority (62.5%) felt that the emphasis is on evaluation only, while 20% felt that the
emphasis was on teaching only and 15% felt that both teaching and evaluation were given
equal weightage in the CS system. (Roy, Khanam & Trribeni (2013) found in their study that
science background students and boys are having higher level of positive attitude towards
CS in comparison to Arts and Girls students. However, there are certain issues which have to
be addressed through the merit and demerit of Credit system.

SUMMARIZATION:-
A credit system is a systematic way of describing an educational programme
by attaching credits to its components. An academic credit system is a
standard used by universities to measure and assess students' work and effort
during their Bachelor's, Master's .Credit system provides an approach in
which the students can take courses of their choice, learn at their own pace.

CONCLUSION:- The credit system in world is introduced to increases the

quality standards .And in India its also in glance and increasing the quality
standard by credit system and it also focuses on state level, where over 90 %
of the nation's approximately 30 million higher education student are involved.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:-

• Nima Bhaskar; Text Book of Nursing Education; EMMESS Medical Publishers.

• Basavanthapa; Nursing Education; Jaypee Brothers Medical publishers.
• https://huffingtonpost.com/mary-ellen-biery/credit-checks-b-2002684.html