A credit system was introduced at the University for the first time in the 2003/2004 academic year.
The system of higher education in the Czech Republic took a new direction in the 1990s, when it began to transform due to the activities of the European Union and the Bologna Process, which aims to create a European Higher Education Area. This process began with the signing of the Bologna Declaration in 1999 by ministers from 29 European countries, including the Czech Republic. One of the Bologna Declaration’s aims was to create a credit system to facilitate mobility within higher education institutions. The European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) has its beginnings in 1989 when it became part of the Erasmus programme, which has been operating as a mobility programme for university students, teachers and staff since 1987.
The creation of the ECTS was thus originally linked to the transfer of credits when acknowledging study abroad in order to facilitate student mobility. At the Berlin Communiqué in 2003, it was agreed that the ECTS would also serve as a credit accumulation system used by non-mobile students for the purpose of obtaining a degree. Thus, the ECTS not only facilitates the recognition of qualifications and parts of studies, but also helps, for instance, when checking study obligations and gives students more freedom in designing their study plan and greater study permeability. The ECTS system is set up so that the study load in one academic year corresponds to 60 credits.
