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The system aims to facilitate the validation, recognition and accumulation of work-related skills and knowledge acquired during a stay in another country or in different situations. It should ensure that these experiences contribute to vocational qualifications. ECVET aims for better compatibility between the different vocational education and training (VET) systems in place across Europe and their qualifications. By 2012, it should create a technical framework to describe qualifications in terms of units of learning outcomes, and it includes assessment, transfer, accumulation and recognition procedures.
Flexibility
In ECVET, an individual’s learning outcomes are assessed and validated in order to transfer credits from one qualification system to another, or from one learning "pathway" to another. According to this approach, learners can accumulate the required learning outcomes for a given qualification over time, in different countries or in different situations. The system also allows the possibility to develop common references for VET qualifications and is fully compatible with the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS).
Developments across Europe
The European Commission set up a European ECVET users' group and a European ECVET network. The users' guide Questions and Answers and the guide Using ECVET for Geographical Mobility were published .
EU Members States should ensure that all relevant qualifications and related ‘Europass’ documents issued by national or regional authorities contain clear information related to the use of ECVET.
Several projects focusing on the development and promotion of ECVET are being developed in different sectors (including automobile service, chemistry, tourism, and international trade), funded by the EU’s Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP). A network of LLP National Agencies created "NETECVET" with the aim to exploiting the Leonardo and LLP project results and to develop a toolbox to foster the transnational mobility of learners. More information on current ECVET projects can be found on the ECVET Pilot projects website and in the ECVET Magazine. Guidelines and instruments that support the use of ECVET are available from the portal of the ECVET Team.
Background
The development of ECVET began in 2002 after the Copenhagen Process emphasised the need for a credit transfer system for VET. National governments and the European Parliament gave their final approval to legislation in June 2009.
More information

• Detailed guidance, answers to frequently asked questions and examples of good practice can be found in the brochure "Get to know ECVET better – Questions and Answers"
• A conference on implementing ECVET was held November 2009 in Brussels. See material from the conference
• Read a summary of EU legislation establishing ECVET and its background
• Legal text: Establishment of the European Credit system for Vocational Education and Training (ECVET)
  Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council (June 2009)
• Establishment of the European Credit system for Vocational Education and Training (ECVET)
  Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council - June 2009 (Brochure)
• Public consultation on ECVET (2006-2007)
• European Credit system for Vocational Education and Training
  Commission staff working document (2006)

Institutions which apply ECTS publish their course catalogues on the web, including detailed descriptions of study programmes, units of learning, university regulations and student services. Course descriptions contain ‘learning outcomes’ (i.e. what students are expected to know, understand and be able to do) and workload (i.e. the time students typically need to achieve these outcomes). Each learning outcome is expressed in terms of credits, with a student workload ranging from 1 500 to 1 800 hours for an academic year, and one credit generally corresponds to 25-30 hours of work.
A series of ECTS key documents help with credit transfer and accumulation – course catalogues, learning agreements, transcript of records and Diploma Supplements (DS). Although ECTS can help recognition of a student’s studies between different institutions and national education systems, higher education providers are autonomous institutions. The final decisions are the responsibility of the relevant authorities: professors involved in student exchanges, university admission officers, recognition advisory centres (ENIC-NARIC), ministry officials or employers.
The European Commission has established a network of Recognition experts (ECTS/DS) and developed the ECTS and DS labels to recognise excellent application of either system.
ECTS is closely related to other efforts to modernise higher education in Europe. In particular, it has become a central tool in the Bologna Process which aims to make national systems converge.
ECTS Users Guide
The ECTS Users' Guide provides guidelines for implementation of ECTS. It also presents the ECTS key documents. The Guide is offered to assist learners, academic and administrative staff in higher education institutions as well as other interested parties. It has been updated in 2009 to take account of developments in the Bologna Process, the growing importance of lifelong learning, the formulation of qualifications frameworks and the increasing use of learning outcomes. It has been written with the help of experts from stakeholders’ associations and ECTS counsellors, and submitted for consultation to stakeholders’ associations, Member States’ experts and the Bologna Follow-up Group. The European Commission has coordinated the drafting and consultation process and is responsible for the final wording of the Guide.
Translations:
(DISCLAIMER - translations provided by national agencies, in case of contest only the English version is the valid version). Hard copies of the ECTS Users Guide can be ordered at the EU Bookshop.
The basic principles of ECTS are summarised in the ECTS Key Features .
Standard forms of the ECTS Users' Guide

• Erasmus Student Application Form [390 KB] (word format)
• Erasmus Learning Agreement [366 KB] (word format)
• Erasmus Training Agreement [86 KB] (word format)
• Erasmus Transcript of Records [362 KB] (word format)