Page 102 - FSTE A5 Handbook

Appendix 1
A Brief Survey of Overseas Transfer
Practices of General Education Courses

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, there is a special programme where students may be admitted into
a university programme through a 1-year Foundation Degree Programme. Unlike other sub-
degree programmes in the world, these foundation programmes are a preparatory programme
particularly offered for the programme-offering university, instead of an independent
institution. It means that students are only expected to pursue further study in the university
where the foundation programme is provided. These programmes are also a foundation
programme, as the name implies, to provide an extra year of education on top of the three-year
bachelor curriculum in the UK. This is different than other associate degree, diploma degree or
junior college programmes that can be recognized and exempt a year of bachelor study. In this
section, the University of Hull is used as a case to study the foundation programme and the
situation of GE programme and credit transfer in UK.

In the University of Hull, there is no GE or common core curriculum that requires students to
read, regardless of their disciplines. Instead, a free elective is assigned in some of the degree
programmes. It is known as “The Free Electives Scheme”. The scheme aims to provide a choice
for students to pursue study based on their interests and needs. Most students are allowed to
choose one free elective module per year from any department. These free electives will still
be counted in the second and third years of their study for final degree classification.

Although there are no GE curricula in the University of Hull, credit transfer is still a possible
option, mainly for students transferring between or outside UK universities. Hull University
follows the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) developed by the Commission of
the European Communities. It provides standardized procedures to guarantee academic
recognition of overseas qualifications by providing a common measurement and comparison
of learning achievements and allows these courses to be transferred from one institution to
another. Students who have undertaken studies from other tertiary programmes might be able
to transfer their previous programme into the programme they have enrolled in, and therefore
an exemption may be granted to fulfil some of the graduation requirements. Furthermore,
students may also apply for “Accredited Prior Learning” if they hope to know whether their
previous experience can be ‘certificated’ or ‘experiential’ (e.g. work experience). In such cases,
students will need to discuss this with their department for further advice to see whether
the experience is transferable (and what evidence they may need to provide). Although some
credits can be transferred, the following circumstances need to be kept in mind:
• To be awarded an Honours degree, students must at least complete the final year -
passing all 120 credits.
• Where the credit is being transferred to a stage that is relevant to degree classification
that credit will not count towards classification unless it was awarded by the University
of Hull.

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