Singapore to Recognise Medical Degrees From India’s Manipal Academy of Higher Education and More

To meet the growing demand for doctors amid an ageing population, eight more overseas institutions will be added to the list of recognised universities for medicine in Singapore with effect from Feb 1.

The Manipal Academy of Higher Education’s Kasturba Medical College in the Udupi district of Karnataka, India, is one of the newly approved schools.

It will join the All India Institute of Medical Science in New Delhi, and the Christian Medical College, Vellore in Tamil Nadu as the only medical schools in India to be recognised by Singapore.

The latest additions will bring the total number of recognised overseas medical schools in Singapore from 112 to 120.

In a joint statement on Jan 27, the Ministry of Health (MOH) and Singapore Medical Council (SMC) said the additions will help meet the growing demand for doctors alongside increasing the annual local medical school intake from around 440 students in 2014, to 555 in 2025.

The statement also said: “SMC regularly reviews the list of registrable medical qualifications to ensure that foreign-trained medical doctors who apply to practise in Singapore have received training that is comparable with schools in Singapore.”

It added that many factors are taken into consideration, including the international rankings of the schools and ensuring the language of instruction of the schools is in English, as well as the performance of doctors from these universities.

The eight newly-recognised schools are:

1. Adelaide University in Australia
2. Manipal Academy of Higher Education in India
3. University of Galway in Ireland
4. Universiti Sains Malaysia in Malaysia
5. The Aga Khan University Medical College in Pakistan
6. Tsinghua University in China
7. University of Exeter in Britain
8. City St George’s, University of London in Britain

From 2026, students who wish to pursue a medical degree can apply to these overseas schools.

All graduates from these medical schools, regardless of nationality, and whether they graduate before or after 2026, can also apply for registration with the SMC to practise medicine in Singapore.