Ethiopia's national health licensing exam (EHPLE) explained

Medical and health education in Ethiopia

Ethiopia has expanded medical training quickly, from a handful of schools to several dozen public and private institutions. The Doctor of Medicine programme takes about six years including a final clinical year, taught in English, and other health professions train through degree programmes of three to five years. Training institutions are overseen by the Ministry of Education and the Education and Training Authority, which handles programme accreditation, while the Ministry of Health leads on licensing.

The distinctive feature is how closely graduation is tied to licensing. Graduates are expected to pass the Ethiopian Health Professionals Licensing Examination (EHPLE), set by the Ministry of Health, before they can be issued a professional licence, and the same national gate applies across cadres. For doctors this is followed, where introduced, by a practical stage. The practical consequence is that your university programme prepares you for a national standard you cannot bypass. Because the exam regime has been evolving, confirm the current rules with the Ministry of Health.

Ethiopia has one licensing exam, not six

Most countries in this region split licensing between councils. Ethiopia does not. The Ministry of Health's licensure directorate runs the Ethiopian Health Professionals Licensing Examination, and it is the gate for every regulated health cadre. That makes Ethiopia unusually easy to describe and unusually high-stakes to sit: a graduate of a private college and a graduate of a federal university take the same national process.

The rest of this page therefore describes the common design first, then the points where each profession differs.

How the EHPLE is built

The theory component is a computer-based multiple-choice paper. Item numbers vary by profession, from about 150 to 350, and the sitting lasts roughly four hours. Where an OSCE has been introduced, candidates rotate through between 8 and 16 stations. The Ministry has not made every profession's blueprint equally public, so use the information booklet for your own cadre as the controlling document.

The 17 professions include medicine, nursing, midwifery, pharmacy, dental medicine and physiotherapy, along with cadres such as medical laboratory, radiology, optometry and anaesthesia. Nursing is split further: general, psychiatric, paediatric, emergency and surgical nursing each have their own exam.

Who needs the licensing exam

• Local graduates of public and private colleges, in every cadre.
• Foreign-trained graduates whose qualifications have been authenticated through the national higher-education quality authority (listed by the Ministry as HERQA).

There is no route into practice that skips the examination. A passing result leads to a licence from the Ministry, and the Ministry also uses licensing outcomes alongside national residency matching for doctors.

Doctors

Medicine is the cadre the Ministry describes most fully. The EHPLE for doctors runs as a long computer-based MCQ followed, where introduced, by an OSCE. Candidates should expect the paper to span the main clinical disciplines: internal medicine, surgery, paediatrics, obstetrics and gynaecology, public health and the basic sciences that underpin them. Results also feed into residency selection, so a pass is necessary but not always sufficient for those targeting a specialty.

Nurses

Nursing is where the Ethiopian system is most distinctive. Because the Ministry licenses several nursing cadres separately, a general nurse and a psychiatric nurse sit different papers. Check which one the Ministry lists against your programme. The nursing papers follow the same computer-based format and the same booklets-and-practice-book support.

Midwives

Midwifery has its own information booklet, published by the Ministry in 2024. Read it before anything else, as it sets out the content areas the paper is built from. Midwifery candidates sit the same kind of computer-based paper, with an OSCE where it has been introduced.

Pharmacists, dentists and physiotherapists

Pharmacists, dentists (listed as dental medicine) and physiotherapists each sit a profession-specific paper in the same system. Format detail beyond the shared description is not broken out by profession in the sources we reviewed, so use each cadre's booklet to confirm item numbers and station counts.

1. Find your cadre's booklet on the Ministry's EHPLE page.
2. Confirm the registration window and your college's role in submitting candidates.
3. Foreign-trained candidates: have your qualification authenticated first.
4. Sit the computer-based paper, then the OSCE if your cadre has one.
5. Collect the licence once results are released.

The Ethiopian exam at a glance

Language and recognition

The licensing examination is in English. Ethiopia has several major national languages, but health education at university level is in English, and so is the paper. There is no separate language test.

Recognition for foreign-trained graduates runs through authentication of the degree, followed by the same licensing exam. There is no mutual recognition shortcut that replaces it.

Studying for a computer-based, 17-profession exam

A national exam of this size rewards steady practice with timed computer-based questions rather than late cramming. Use the practice book on the Ministry page for style, build a question bank by domain, and rehearse the four-hour stamina. TriagePass is independent of the Ministry and does not reproduce recalled questions. Join the waitlist for updates on Ethiopian practice courses.

Preparing for a four-hour computer-based paper

A paper of 150 to 350 questions over about four hours is a test of stamina as much as of knowledge. Three habits help.

• Practise the full length. Do at least two complete timed sessions on screen before the sitting, so the final hour is not the first time you meet fatigue.
• Pace by block. Divide the item count by the time and set checkpoints every hour. If you are behind, mark and move on.
• Review by domain. After each mock, group your errors by topic and revise the weakest topic first.

For the OSCE, rehearse out loud with a partner. Eight to sixteen stations means short, structured tasks: history, examination, counselling, procedures and data interpretation, depending on your cadre. Practise the opening and closing of each station, because that is where marks are most easily lost.

Ethiopian disease burden and what it means for question content

Because the examination is for Ethiopian practice, expect content to reflect local priorities: maternal and child health, infectious disease, nutrition, trauma, and the growing burden of non-communicable disease. Use the Ministry's practice book and the information booklet for your cadre as the guide to scope, and treat any question bank, including ours, as a supplement to them rather than a replacement.

The Ministry notes that the practice book and booklets are provided on its page precisely so that candidates know what to expect. Start there.

Last reviewed October 2026