IGNOU follows the Credit System for all its courses and diploma programs. The Credit System is a special way of measuring the course requirements to complete a course including lectures, classes, assignments, and term-end examinations. Here are a few points about the IGNOU Credit System.

Credit is a measure or unit that shows the total study hours required by a student to complete a specific IGNOU course in any IGNOU Study Centre. As per the norms stated by IGNOU, One Credit is equal to 30 study hours. Each Credit is equivalent to 30 hours of study hours including all the offline lectures, listening to audio study materials and watching videos from the IGNOU portal, understanding the study material, writing assignments, and attending counseling sessions.

Thus, a 4-credit course comprises 120 study hours and a 6-credit course comprises 180 study hours. This helps the students to know how much academic effort they have to put in to complete the whole course successfully within the given duration. Completion of an academic course from IGNOU (a degree course or a diploma course) requires successful completion of the projects, assignments, and term-end examinations as per the requirement of each IGNOU course.