ECTS diegimo iššūkiai socialinių mokslų srities programų studijų procese

ENThe article deals with challenges of implementing ECTS. It highlights the fact that ECTS is one of the instruments used to adopt a different attitude towards both the teacher's and the student's performance as well as the study process itself. It is while planning teaching/learning tasks to achieve certain learning outcomes that curriculum designers have to constantly monitor the time during which the study programme has to be implemented. Therefore, one of the most important innovations is the idea to link learning objectives, competencies and ECTS credits based on the students’ workload. The article emphasizes the extreme importance to understand that the time needed for the student to achieve learning outcomes depends not only on knowledge and skills, which have to be instilled or developed, but also on the environment in which the learning process takes place. The time needed by the learner to reach learning outcomes is determined by learning culture, teaching, studying and assessment methods as well as the student's personal qualities and his/her general level of education.The number of credits has to be set depending on the workload expressed in time the student needs to reach certain learning outcomes. In other words, it Is necessary to ensure the consistency and balance between learning outcomes and credits, as study credits are a quantitative expression to determine the student's scope and length of studies, while learning outcomes are a qualitative expression which reveals the study content. In the process of transition towards studies based on learning outcomes the attitude to the teacher's and student's performance and study process changes. The student finds himself/herself in the centre of the study process and the main accent shifts from teaching content to learning outcomes. However, the stated expected learning outcomes involve sharing of responsibility. The higher institution and teachers take care of resources, environment and assistance to the student who in his/her turn takes care of how to make effective use of teaching/learning possibilities that are available to him/her as well as resources and environment. Consequently, ECTS implements a different attitude to studies and credits.