1. STUDY VOLUME IN HOURS

The categories A, B, C and D stand for the study volume per year in number of hours.
A training course counts a minimum of 1,500 hours and a maximum of 1,800 hours.

Category A: hours of lectures (instruction lessons, explanations, discourses,…)

Category B: hours of guided exercise activities (exercise sessions, laboratory sessions, workshop, training sessions, seminars, practicals, group discussions,…). During these activities, the theoretical content knowledge and skills are explored and applied.

Category C: hours of activities related to the field of action (working visits, observations, work placements, thesis,…). These are activities in or around the future field of action.

Category D: total study time, including self-study. Self-study is the effort expected from a student in order to prepare and elaborate the activities from A, B and C thoroughly. Self-study is done at home, in the student room or in the study areas which Hogeschool Gent puts at the students' disposal. When estimating the number of hours of self-study, we started from the standard student, i.e. the "average" student belonging to the target group of the training course.

For example:

Course: computer techniques

A: 52   B: 52   C: -   D: 210

In this example, the study load for computer techniques is 52 hours of lectures, 52 hours of supervised exercise activities, 0 hours of activities related to the field of action and 210 - (52 + 52 + 0) = 106 hours of self-study. A "standard" student is expected to spend 210 hours on studying this course.

2. STUDY VOLUME IN CREDIT UNITS

The study volume in hours is transferred into credit units (category E). Each training course counts 60 credit units per study year. Each credit unit is estimated at 25 to 30 hours of study time. The number of study points indicates the relative weight of a course. In the total amount of credit units, a course of 6 credit units has a double weight compared to one of 3 credit units.