Rift Valley University

Health and medical education

Rift Valley University (RVU) is a large private university that began in Adama in 2000 and now runs campuses across Ethiopia. Its health programmes are spread over many of those campuses. Medicine is taught only at the Adama campus.

Medicine in Adama

• World Directory listing: entry F0008307 lists Rift Valley University's medical faculty in Adama, teaching medicine since 2017. A directory listing confirms that a school exists and offers the MD; it is not an accreditation.
• Adama campus: the campus profile lists Medicine with Nursing, Medical Laboratory Science and Pharmacy, and names a Medicine Department head (Sisay Bisa). It reports 122 staff, 57 of them academic, on a 55,428 m² site about 99 km from Addis Ababa.
• Students: the profile gives student numbers by year across all the campus's programmes, from 180 in year I to 14 in year VI.

We found no RVU page that describes the MD curriculum, its length, or the hospitals used for clinical rotations. Ask the Adama campus directly.

Nursing, pharmacy and other health programmes

RVU's campus profiles list these health programmes (as of November 2026):

Programme pages:

• The BSc Nursing and Pharmacy pages publish their objectives, graduate profiles and first-year course lists.
• The Public Health page describes a health-officer-style degree that includes outpatient care, minor surgical and obstetric procedures, and community health work.
• At postgraduate level, RVU lists a Master of General Public Health (GMPH).

Not every campus is licensed for every programme, so check the specific campus.

Rankings

RVU is one of the few private institutions on international ranking lists:

• EduRank Medicine: 16th in Ethiopia (298th in Africa, 5,512th in the world).
• EduRank Public Health: 16th in Ethiopia (264th in Africa, 4,244th in the world).
• EduRank overall: 16th in Ethiopia.
• uniRank 2026: 45th of 51 Ethiopian universities.

These rankings measure research output and web presence, not teaching quality.

Accreditation

• RVU's own account: its history page says the Ministry of Education and the Oromia Education Bureau, working with the Ministry of Health, accredit its programmes. It also says HERQA, the predecessor of the Education and Training Authority (ETA), granted it university status in August 2014.
• Licence documents: the Adama campus page links a 96-page bundle of older HERQA letters. The ones we read were for business and computing programmes. We did not find the medicine licence in it.
• ETA register: on 4 November 2026 no RVU programme was on the ETA's online register. That register lists only 13 certificates so far, all at public institutions.
• Exams: we found no published exit-exam or licensing results for RVU.

The institution

RVU traces its start to October 2000, when classes began in Adama with 154 evening students and five part-time teachers.

• Founders: its history page names founders Ato Dinku Deyasa, owner of NAFYAD PLC, and Ato Reta Bekele, a former president of the Adama and Jimma high courts. The "About us" page speaks of five founders.
• Growth: branch campuses followed in Asella, Gotera, Batu, Bishoftu, Dire Dawa, Chiro, Bole, Gulele and Harar during the 2000s. Its campus list now has more than 40 entries, from Abichu to Woliso, including one in Hargeisa.
• University status: the Ministry of Education and HERQA made it a full university in August 2014. The Adama campus profile reports 22 graduated batches.
• Programmes: RVU says it offers more than 36 undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. Many are also offered through extension, distance and online study.

Head office: in Addis Ababa. The website footer gives "4 Kilo, next to Ethio Post" on some pages and "Nifas Silk-Lafto, Gotera" on others. Use the phone numbers to confirm.

Admission and fees:

• How to apply: directly to RVU, not through national placement, using its online student admission system (osa.riftvalleyuniversity.edu.et).
• Fees: the website's "Admission & Aid" page still shows template text with US-dollar fees for other universities. Ignore it and ask the campus for its real fee schedule.

Before you apply

• Confirm which campus teaches your programme. Medicine is at Adama only; nursing and pharmacy are at many campuses, and each campus is licensed separately.
• For medicine, ask the Adama campus for the Education and Training Authority's current accreditation letter for the MD, the course length and the hospitals used for clinical years.
• For nursing, pharmacy or public health, ask for that campus's licence for the programme and modality: regular, extension or distance.
• Ask for exit-exam and licensing-exam pass rates for your programme at your campus.
• Get the fee schedule in writing from the campus. Do not rely on the fee page on the website.