Defence University College of Health Sciences

Health and medical education

The College of Health Sciences (CoHS) is one of three colleges of the Ethiopian Defence University. Its stated mission is to produce "competent military health professionals" for the defence forces. Its director adds that the college "is open to the community in which it is found".

History

Military health training in Ethiopia is older than the university. The college's own pages give different dates for its beginnings:

• The director's message: training began in 1935 G.C. "in a small tent" in the compound of the former Leilt Tsehay Memorial Hospital, now the Armed Forces Comprehensive Specialized Hospital.
• The university's milestones page: places that tent in 1948.

In the 1950s, nursing schools opened beside the Eastern Command hospital in Harar and the Kagnew hospital in Asmara. The college says it was established in 1996 G.C., while the milestones page says 1995. At first it took students in four programmes: public health officer, pharmacy, medical laboratory and nursing. It later added many TVET-level courses.

Medicine

In 2011 the college launched a Doctor of Medicine degree under the national New Innovative Medical Education Initiative. The World Directory of Medical Schools lists it as Ethiopian Defense University College of Health Sciences in Bishoftu and states that it does not admit foreign students. The Department of Medicine reports about 250 students and 15 faculty. It runs three programmes: medicine, dental medicine and physiotherapy.

Other programmes

The college's departments page lists 8 departments, 19 undergraduate and 3 postgraduate programmes:

• Nursing: generic and post-basic nursing, psychiatric nursing, and post-basic operation-theatre nursing. The department reports about 180 students.
• Surgery and anaesthesia: generic and post-basic programmes.
• Midwifery
• Pharmacy: generic and post-basic clinical pharmacy.
• Medical laboratory and radiology
• Public health: community and environmental health.
• Integrated Emergency Surgery and Obstetrics (IESO): a postgraduate programme.

The director's message names two running postgraduate programmes, the MSc in IESO and the MSc in Public Health. It also lists plans for specialties in orthopaedics and general surgery and an MSc in emergency and critical care nursing.

Teaching hospital and staff

Clinical teaching is tied to the Armed Forces Comprehensive Specialized Hospital (AFCSH) in Addis Ababa, the college's affiliated teaching hospital. The college also has skills labs and biomedical science labs for anatomy, pharmacy and medical laboratory science. As of January 2026 it reported 174 academic staff on duty: 15 at assistant professor rank or above, and 94 with a master's degree, specialty or higher. Another 36 were on study leave.

Accreditation and rankings

No Defence University programme was on the ETA's online accreditation register when we checked on 4 November 2026. That register holds only 13 records nationwide. The university does not appear on EduRank's medicine list or on uniRank.

The institution

The Ethiopian Defence University is a public university under the Ministry of Defence. It began as a university college in 2001, under Council of Ministers Regulation No. 68/2001, which merged the defence engineering and health sciences colleges with the Major General Mulugeta Buli Technic College. It became a full university in 2012 after evaluation by HERQA, the higher-education regulator at the time. It now has three colleges: Engineering, Health Science, and Business and Social Studies (formerly Resource Management). It also has an Institute of Research and Development. The university says it had graduated 9,856 students by August 2020 in engineering, health and resource management. At its July 2025 graduation, students finished undergraduate, master's and doctoral programmes in fields including engineering, health sciences, business and resource management.

The university's contact address is in Bishoftu. The health college says it is meant to run on four campuses: two in Bishoftu, one at the AFCSH in Addis Ababa and one planned in Dire Dawa.

Admission is different

Admission is tied to military service. The university admits two groups:

• Serving army members: need a Ministry of Defence support letter, an appraisal score of at least 70%, an age of 30 or under, and enough remaining service to serve two years for each year of training.
• Civilians: must be Ethiopian, aged 18–24 and unmarried. They must be willing to take basic military training and become members of the army, and must pass medical screening and a security clearance. They too serve two years for each year of training.

Both groups must also meet the national entrance-exam cut-off and any university entrance exam.

Before you apply

• Understand the commitment. Civilian students join the army and owe two years of service for each year of study. Over a multi-year degree such as the MD, that adds up to many years of service.
• Check the eligibility rules for age, marital status, nationality and fitness before applying. The World Directory says foreign students are not admitted.
• Ask which campus you will study on. Pre-clinical and clinical years may be split between Bishoftu and the Armed Forces hospital in Addis Ababa.
• Use the email addresses for contact. The college's own contact pages show only placeholder phone numbers (+251-11-646-XXXX). Use the CoHS emails or the university's main line.
• Ask about accreditation and licensing. Ask which of the college's programmes are accredited, and how its graduates sit the national licensing exam.