# University of Gondar

> Ethiopia's oldest health training institution, founded in 1954 as the Public Health College and Training Centre. Its College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Institute of Public Health and 960-bed comprehensive specialized hospital make it one of the country's largest health-education centres.

Source: https://www.medicine.et/schools/university-of-gondar  
Site: Bloom Medicine — https://www.medicine.et  
Last updated: 2026-11-04

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Public university · Gondar, Amhara · founded 1954 · details checked November 4, 2026

## Contact

- Phone: +251 58 894 0290 (Main line (Public and International Relations)) — Printed on the site as (+251) 588 940 290.
- Phone: +251 58 114 1232 (University Hospital / Public and International Relations)
- Phone: +251 58 114 1237 (Registrar and Alumni Directorate) — The registrar page gives the same number for the College of Medicine and Health Sciences assistant registrar.
- Phone: +251 58 812 9871 (Postgraduate Directorate)
- Phone: +251 58 114 1240 (Fax)
- Phone: +251 58 114 1233 (Fax)
- Email: info@uog.edu.et (General)
- Email: registrar@uog.edu.et (Registrar)
- Email: postgraduate@uog.edu.et (Postgraduate Directorate)
- Website: https://uog.edu.et
- Address: Maraki Street, Gondar. The College of Medicine and Health Sciences and the referral teaching hospital have their own campus in the city.
- P.O. Box: P.O. Box 196, Gondar
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/TheUniversityofGondar
- Telegram: https://t.me/UofGondar
- X: https://twitter.com/UnivOfGondar
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/school/university-of-gondar/
- YouTube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCwgDSM82A-A7hAt6tqIx2CQ

## Health programmes

- Doctor of Medicine (MD)
- Dental medicine
- BSc Nursing (comprehensive, emergency and critical care, paediatric, surgical and psychiatric tracks)
- BSc Midwifery
- BSc Pharmacy
- BSc Anesthesia
- BSc Medical Laboratory Sciences
- BSc Physiotherapy
- BSc Occupational Therapy
- BSc Dietetics
- Health officer training (Institute of Public Health)
- MPH tracks including general public health, epidemiology, field epidemiology, biostatistics, health economics, health informatics, health service management, monitoring and evaluation, reproductive and child health, environmental health and occupational health and safety
- MSc in Clinical Midwifery
- MSc nursing tracks (medical, surgical, paediatric, neonatal, oncology, emergency and critical care)
- MSc in Clinical Pharmacy, Pharmacology, Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Management
- MSc in Advanced Clinical Anesthesia, Clinical Optometry, Physiotherapy
- PhD programmes including Public Health, Epidemiology, Nursing, Midwifery and Women's Health, Health Economics, Pharmacology and Anesthesia
- Specialty certificates in 13 fields and 5 subspecialties (2024/25 list)

## Health and medical education

Gondar is where formal health training in Ethiopia began. In **1954** the government, with USAID, WHO and the Ministry of Public Health, turned the old Che-Che-la hospital into the **Public Health College and Training Centre**. Its job was to train teams of mid-level health workers (health officers, community nurses, sanitarians and laboratory technicians) for rural health centres. The university still describes that **team approach and community-based teaching** as its founding philosophy.

Doctor training came later. In **1978** an agreement between Karl Marx University in Germany and Addis Ababa University set up a medical faculty in Gondar, first taught by German medical experts. The college separated from Addis Ababa University in 1992 and became the University of Gondar, with its current status, in 2004. That 1954 college is now the **College of Medicine and Health Sciences (CMHS)**.

### What the college teaches

The college's own programme page lists undergraduate degrees in **medicine, dentistry, anesthesia, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, nursing** (comprehensive, emergency and critical care, paediatric, surgical and psychiatric tracks), **midwifery, pharmacy, medical laboratory sciences** and **dietetics**. Its schools cover medicine, nursing, midwifery, pharmacy, and biomedical and laboratory sciences, plus a unit of paediatric haematology–oncology.

The Registrar's table of active programmes gives the college **31 undergraduate programmes (13 of them post-basic upgrades for diploma holders), 44 master's, 15 PhD, 11 specialty and 5 subspecialty programmes**, 106 in all. The Postgraduate Directorate's 2024/25 list is slightly longer: 17 PhD programmes in health and specialty certificates in 13 fields.

### Residencies

The 2024/25 list includes specialty training in **internal medicine, surgery, paediatrics and child health, obstetrics and gynaecology, ophthalmology, orthopaedics and trauma, radiology, pathology, dermatovenereology, neurology, psychiatry, emergency and critical care medicine**, and **oral and maxillofacial surgery**. Subspecialties are **gynaecologic oncology, maternal–fetal medicine, urogynaecology and reconstructive pelvic surgery, paediatric haematology–oncology** and **general trauma surgery**.

### Nursing, midwifery, pharmacy and public health

- **Nursing:** community nursing was one of the three original departments in 1954. Gondar is **first in Ethiopia on EduRank for nursing** and for critical-care nursing. A four-year **PhD in nursing and midwifery** began in 2018/19 with support from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. A published evaluation called it the first of its kind in East Africa.
- **Midwifery:** Gondar ran the country's **first Master's in Clinical Midwifery (2010)**. This programme trains midwives in emergency obstetric surgery, including caesarean section. It still appears on the 2024/25 list, alongside a PhD in Midwifery and Women's Health.
- **Pharmacy:** the School of Pharmacy was founded in 2000. In 2015 it became the second Ethiopian university to offer a master's in clinical pharmacy. It is first in Ethiopia on EduRank's pharmacy list.
- **Public health:** the **Institute of Public Health** grew from the Department of Community Health. That department became a School of Public Health in 2000 and an institute in 2010. It has eight departments, including a dedicated Health Officer department. It also runs the **Dabat Research Center** and the long-running Team Training Programme, and lists the widest range of public-health master's tracks of any school in our [public health guide](/blog/top-public-health-schools-in-ethiopia). Gondar is first in Ethiopia and ninth in Africa for public health research on EduRank.

### Teaching hospital

The **University of Gondar Comprehensive Specialized Hospital** stands on the site of medical care that dates to 1924. The university marked its 100th anniversary in 2025. According to the hospital, it has **960 beds**, 28 wards and 15 outpatient service areas. It serves a catchment of more than 13 million people as the sole referral centre for north-west Ethiopia. Each year it records around 400,000 outpatient visits, more than 30,000 admissions, about 15,000 operations and 10,500 deliveries. It lists 2,331 staff, including 217 doctors and 1,098 other health professionals. Specialist centres include leishmaniasis treatment and research, tertiary eye care, oncology, dialysis and fistula care.

### Accreditation and recognition

In June 2025 the university announced that its **anesthesia programme** had been accredited by the Education and Training Authority. It called this the first accredited anesthesia programme in the country. The authority's online register lists it as **provisionally accredited** (May 2025 to May 2028). No other Gondar programme, including the MD, appeared on the register when we checked. Gondar became a founding member of the Consortium of Medical Schools–Africa in 2025.

## The institution

The University of Gondar has five campuses:
- **College of Medicine and Health Sciences** and the referral teaching hospital share their own campus.
- **Atse Tewodros** is the main campus, with natural sciences, veterinary medicine, informatics and biotechnology.
- **Maraki** has social sciences, business, law and education.
- **Atse Fasil** has the Institute of Technology.
- **Tseda** has agriculture.

The Institute of Public Health lists its address as the Science Amba campus.

Across the university, the Registrar's table lists 95 undergraduate and 250 postgraduate programmes (master's, PhD, specialty and subspecialty). The Postgraduate Directorate describes Gondar as one of Ethiopia's eight research universities.

**Admissions.** The Registrar says regular undergraduate places are filled through the Ministry of Education's national placement, based on the entrance-exam result, the student's choices and department capacity. Medicine and dental medicine may set their own criteria and a separate entrance exam. Extension programmes accept applicants who meet the entrance-exam cut-off, and diploma holders with a certificate of competence. Graduate applications run through the Postgraduate Directorate. The Registrar's fee page was empty when we checked.

Gondar is second in Ethiopia for medicine on EduRank (20th in Africa) and second overall on uniRank.

## Before you apply

- Confirm which campus your programme is on. Health programmes are on the College of Medicine and Health Sciences campus, but public health lists a separate campus address.
- Ask whether the programme you want is in this year's intake. The Registrar's table and the 2024/25 graduate list differ slightly in their counts.
- Only anesthesia appears on the national accreditation register so far. For other programmes, ask the college for its accreditation and licensing-exam results.
- For the MSc in Clinical Midwifery or a residency, ask about cohort size and how many operations or deliveries trainees log at the hospital.
- The college's own website has been hacked with spam links. Use the main university site (uog.edu.et), the Registrar site or the phone numbers above to reach the college.

## Rankings

- EduRank Medicine (Ethiopia / world): 2 / 872 (https://edurank.org/medicine/et/)
- EduRank Nursing (Ethiopia / world): 1 / 305 (https://edurank.org/medicine/nursing/et/)
- EduRank Critical Care Nursing (Ethiopia / world): 1 / 608 (https://edurank.org/medicine/critical-care/et/)
- EduRank Public Health (Ethiopia / world): 1 / 322 (https://edurank.org/medicine/public/et/)
- EduRank Pharmacy (Ethiopia / world): 1 / 1,272 (https://edurank.org/medicine/pharmacy/et/)
- EduRank Pharmacology (Ethiopia / world): 2 / 1,158 (https://edurank.org/medicine/pharmacology/et/)
- EduRank Obstetrics and Gynecology (Ethiopia / world): 1 / 603 (https://edurank.org/medicine/obgyn/et/)
- EduRank overall (Ethiopia / world): 5 / 3,850 (https://edurank.org/geo/et/)
- uniRank 2026 (Ethiopia): 2 (https://www.unirank.org/et/ranking/)

## Sources

- [University of Gondar: History of University of Gondar](https://uog.edu.et/our-history/)
- [University of Gondar: Contact Us](https://uog.edu.et/contact-us/)
- [University of Gondar: Campus and Locations](https://uog.edu.et/uog-campus-and-locations/)
- [University of Gondar Comprehensive Specialized Hospital: About UoG Hospital](https://hospital.uog.edu.et/about-uog-hospital/)
- [University of Gondar Comprehensive Specialized Hospital: home page (staff figures)](https://hospital.uog.edu.et/)
- [University of Gondar: Postgraduate Directorate and list of graduate programmes 2024/25](https://uog.edu.et/postgraduate-directorate/)
- [University of Gondar Registrar: Active Programs](https://registrar.uog.edu.et/active-programs/)
- [University of Gondar Registrar: Contact](https://registrar.uog.edu.et/contact-2/)
- [University of Gondar Registrar: Undergraduate Admission](https://registrar.uog.edu.et/undergraduate-admission/)
- [University of Gondar Registrar: home page (student and programme figures)](https://registrar.uog.edu.et/)
- [University of Gondar Institute of Public Health: About the Institute](https://iph.uog.edu.et/about-us/about-institut-of-public-health/)
- [University of Gondar: Anesthesia Program Receives Accreditation from the Ethiopian Education and Training Authority (17 June 2025)](https://uog.edu.et/anesthesia-program-receives-accreditation-from-the-ethiopian-education-and-training-authority/)
- [University of Gondar: University of Gondar Joins Historic African Medical Education Consortium (8 June 2025)](https://uog.edu.et/university-of-gondar-joins-historic-african-medical-education-consortium/)
- [FDRE Education and Training Authority: Accredited Institutions & Programs](https://accreditation.neta.gov.et)
- [IIE: University of Gondar institutional profile (2023)](https://www.iie.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Gondar-University.pdf)
- [Erlandsson K et al. Half-time evaluation of a new 4-year Ph.D. program in nursing and midwifery at the University of Gondar. Global Health Action, 2021](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8381928/)
- [Bhagavathula AS. Clinical pharmacy in Ethiopia: an experience based literature review. Global Health (University of Findlay), 2018](https://journals.findlay.edu/index.php/gh/article/view/68)
- [Alemu FM et al. Effectiveness of simulation-based cesarean section education on improving non-physician clinician midwife's competency. BMC Medical Education, 2023](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10722683/)
- [Wikipedia: University of Gondar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Gondar)
- [Assefa T et al. Survival analysis to measure turnover of the medical education workforce in Ethiopia. Human Resources for Health, 2017](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5348897/)
- [EduRank: Best universities for medicine in Ethiopia (updated 15 March 2026)](https://edurank.org/medicine/et/)
- [EduRank: Best universities in Ethiopia](https://edurank.org/geo/et/)
- [uniRank: 2026 Ethiopian University Ranking](https://www.unirank.org/et/ranking/)