Number of credit hours required for master’s students’ first semester reduced

AMMAN — The Higher Education Council on Thursday approved a reduction in the maximum credit hours that students are allowed to take in the first semester of master’s degrees from 15 to 9 hours, Higher Education Minister Adel Tweisi told The Jordan Times on Saturday.  

The decision came during a meeting chaired by the minister, where the council decided to amend the second paragraph of its decision No. 2/2010 to reduce the number of courses to be taken over the first semester to a total of three. 

Asked about the reasons behind the change, Tweisi said that “the ministry considered that graduate students were undertaking a very heavy study load, thus we decided to make it more reasonable for master’s students.” 

Regarding the language requirements, the council determined that the students who did not pass the national Test of English as a Foreign Language  will no longer have to take two English courses during the first semester of the master's degree, allocating the remaining credit hours for the three remedial courses required for students with a "pass" GPA grade. 

“It was a mistake to require students to register in two English courses in the same semester,” the minister said, stressing that “English 102 is a requirement for English 101 and it does not make sense for students to be enrolled in both courses at the same time.” 

“This way, students with a ‘pass’  GPA grade will be able to register in a total of six credit hours of the required remedial courses in addition to the English 101 course during the first semester,” the minister explained, adding that “this change will ease the journey of the students into the beginning of their master’s degrees.”