The Bulgarian Parliament approved the decision to join a university network of 14 countries in Central Europe, with Bulgarian becoming a member of the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS), Bulgarian National Radio (BNR) said on February 12 2009.

The document sees Bulgaria incorporating the ECTS, which will substantially augment academic standards and ease the transfer of academic credits from one educational institution to another, both within Bulgaria and from Bulgaria across the European Union.

This document has been signed already by Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia. It is a part of the Central European Exchange Program for University Studies.
 
ECTS has been designated as standard for comparing the study attainments and performance of students of higher education establishments in the EU and participating non-EU countries. Upon successfully completed academic courses, students can be rewarded with a European-accredited ECTS report.

Currently, the system means that an academic year corresponds to 60 ECTS credits, which itself would correspond to 1500-1800 hours of academic courses. The system will be standardised for all EU member states and it will be used to facilitate transfer of credits from one academic institution to another, thus easing academic progression through the European Union.

ECTS also includes a standard grading scale, intended to be shown in addition to local, or national standard grades