11 - Wales - Curriculum

country: Wales

Prospective students apply for a specific programme when they apply for admission. Programmes typically focus on a particular subject area, but there are also combined studies programmes involving two, or possibly three, specialisations. There is normally also some choice within each programme. Typically, a relatively fixed menu of course modules covers the core knowledge of the subject, and is combined with an element of choice, increasing in the latter years of the course of study, with regard to the more specialised aspects of the subject area.

Institutions may also choose to offer courses that are specifically intended to meet the needs of the local community, such as part-time courses providing professional updating, which people attend on day-release from work or attend in the evening, or leisure courses on matters of potential interest such as local history or geography, or language or literature classes.

Increasing numbers of courses are available on a modular and/or part-time basis. Modular courses provide increased flexibility to both institutions and students by making it easier for institutions to offer their courses either full- or part-time, and by enabling students to move in and out of study programmes and institutions.

Credit transfer schemes, which are often linked to modular systems of study, allow students to build up credits towards a full qualification. In England, a number of credit consortia (voluntary groups of institutions) have collaborated over many years on the development and use of credit based systems. More recently, there has been convergence in respect of the basis upon which credit is awarded, and the credit tariff. In 2005, the sector-wide 'Measuring and Recording Student Achievement Steering Group' consulted stakeholders on developing national credit arrangements in England, and found a clear consensus for national arrangements in the form of flexible guidelines. In December 2006, the Group published proposals for credit arrangements for England (Universities UK, 2006) which can articulate with the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS).

In Wales, since 2003, all accredited learning has been gradually brought into a single unifying structure referred to as the Credit and Qualifications Framework for Wales (CQFW). The majority of Welsh universities continue to work collaboratively on its implementation; the framework includes a credit accumulation and transfer system and vocational qualifications.

Each institution determines the number of hours of study required for each programme. In 2006, the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) commissioned a survey of first and second year full time undergraduate
students in English universities. The survey asked about the amount of teaching received and private study undertaken. The report (HEPI, 2006) set out the student workload by institution and by subject. It revealed a wide variation in the amount of teaching timetabled in each subject, with subjects such as medicine, dentistry, engineering and technology providing more than twice the number of taught hours than either languages or history.

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Date: 2009
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