Licensing exams for health professionals in Ghana

Medical and health education in Ghana

Medical degrees in Ghana (MBChB) take six years and are taught in English at a small number of public and private universities. Dentistry is also a long degree-level programme, nursing runs as a three-year diploma or a four-year bachelor degree, and pharmacy and allied health have their own degree routes. The Ghana Tertiary Education Commission accredits institutions and programmes, while the Medical and Dental Council, the Nursing and Midwifery Council, the Pharmacy Council and the Allied Health Professions Council each approve training for their professions.

For doctors and dentists, the key step after graduation is housemanship, a supervised placement of about two years, after which full registration is confirmed. Nurses register through the Nursing and Midwifery Council after their programme. Because each council acts independently, there is no single national route, and the detail differs by profession. Confirm the current length of housemanship with the Medical and Dental Council before you plan your timeline.

Ghana: four councils, four different gates

Ghana does not have one national licensing exam. Each council runs its own process, and the difference between professions is large. A Ghanaian nursing graduate faces a licensure paper that is a routine part of finishing training. A doctor who trained in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, China or Cuba faces a separate registration examination with a cap on attempts. A pharmacist, whether local or foreign-trained, sits a qualifying examination.

This page follows the councils rather than the professions, because the councils are where the rules live.

Who needs a licensing exam in Ghana

• Locally trained doctors and dentists: register after university finals and housemanship. No separate national licensing exam is listed.
• Foreign-trained doctors and dentists: sit the Medical and Dental Council registration or licensing examination.
• Nurses and midwives: all graduates of Ghanaian programmes sit the Nursing and Midwifery Council licensure examination. Foreign-trained nurses apply through a separate application pack.
• Pharmacists: everyone who wishes to practise, local or foreign-trained, sits the qualifying examination.
• Physiotherapists: graduates sit the Allied Health Professions Council licensure examination before internship and induction.

Nursing and Midwifery Council: the online licensure examination

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) of Ghana licenses by examination. Its own presentation cites more than 18,000 students across 22 programmes, which makes this the largest examination in Ghanaian health regulation. The papers have gone online, and the published pattern is several multiple-choice papers (for example 180, 180 and 100 items) alongside a practical assessment.

Registered General Nursing and Registered Midwifery each have their own licensure paper. Foreign-trained nurses use a separate application pack set out on the registration page of the NMC site.

1. Confirm your programme and cadre with your school or the NMC registration page.
2. Register for the licensure sitting through the Council's online process.
3. Sit the computer-based MCQ papers and the practical.
4. Receive your results and proceed to licence issue and induction.

Ghana is also a big source of nurses for the UK and the US. Many candidates prepare for the NMC licensure and the NMC (UK) Test of Competence or NCLEX-RN together. The clinical knowledge overlaps, but the question styles differ, so plan separate practice for each.

Medical and Dental Council: the foreign-trained route

Many Ghanaian doctors and dentists trained overseas. For them the Medical and Dental Council (MDC) runs a registration or licensing examination. The reported format is multiple-choice questions plus a clinical component, though we could not confirm the detail from an official page in our last review, so check with the Council before you plan around it.

If this is your route, the practical advice is simple: prepare as if the first attempt is the only one, and use mock papers to learn pacing before the sitting.

Pharmacy Council: one qualifying exam for everyone

The Pharmacy Council Ghana runs the Ghana Pharmacy Professionals Qualifying Examination. Unlike in many countries, it applies to every pharmacist wishing to practise in Ghana, not only to those trained abroad. The Council also runs a separate technician examination. The sources we reviewed do not state the paper structure, so look for the current notice on the Council website.

Allied Health Professions Council: physiotherapists

Physiotherapists are licensed by the Allied Health Professions Council (AHPC), which sits under the Ministry of Health. It inducts about 2,800 allied health graduates a year according to press coverage, covering physiotherapists, medical laboratory scientists, radiographers and others. The licensure examination is taken before internship and induction. Format details are not published in the material we reviewed.

Ghana licensing examinations compared

Language and recognition

English is the working language of the Ghanaian health system and of every examination listed here. No separate language test applies to Ghanaian-trained candidates. For those trained in a non-English-speaking country, the challenge is local clinical practice and drug names, which differ from those used in many European and Asian curricula.

Recognition for foreign-trained professionals runs through each council: document verification, then the examination, then supervised practice or housemanship. There is no automatic recognition route for qualifications from any single country.

How to use this page

Use it to decide which council to contact first. The councils, not TriagePass, decide eligibility, dates, fees and format. Our role is practice: questions grouped by domain, with explanations that show the reasoning. We are independent and do not claim any council endorsement.

Planning your preparation around the Ghanaian format

The nursing and midwifery papers are the best documented, so plan around them. Three multiple-choice papers of 180, 180 and 100 items means a lot of reading under time pressure, and the move online changes the experience: you cannot annotate a printed paper, and you need to be comfortable moving between questions on screen. Rehearse with timed computer-based practice well before the sitting.

• Nurses and midwives: work through the major clinical areas in rotation, and keep the practical in view from the start. Practical stations reward a rehearsed sequence of steps, not last-minute reading.
• Foreign-trained doctors and dentists: if the five-attempt limit applies to you, treat each attempt as scarce. Sit a full timed mock before the real sitting, review every wrong answer, and ask the Council what the clinical component involves.
• Pharmacists: since the paper structure is not public, cover the whole pharmacy curriculum evenly: pharmaceutics, pharmacology, clinical pharmacy, pharmacy law and ethics, and public health.
• Physiotherapists: allied health examinations draw on anatomy, musculoskeletal and neurological assessment, cardiorespiratory physiotherapy and professional practice.

Working in Ghana versus working abroad

Ghana trains many clinicians who later move to the UK, the Gulf and North America. The Ghanaian licence is normally needed before those regulators will accept an application, because they ask for a certificate of good standing from the home council. That makes the home licensure examination a first step in an international career, not only a local requirement. If you intend to migrate, plan your timetable so that the Ghanaian result, document verification and any language test do not collide.

Last reviewed October 2026