Health ministry cuts approved overseas medical schools

Starting 2020, the list of overseas medical schools whose graduates can practise in Singapore will shrink from 160 to 103. Universities that will be excluded come from 20 countries, including Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, United States, China and India, reports Channel News Asia.

The changes come as the need to recruit overseas-trained doctors abates, with total annual intakes from local medical schools rising from 300 in 2010 to about 500 in 2018. "The impact of the increase in local medical school intake will be fully realised from 2023, when these students graduate," said the Ministry of Health and the Singapore Medical Council.

Responding to CNA's queries, the ministry and the Singapore Medical Council said that in recent years, it registered about 120 doctors annually who had trained at the affected medical schools. Of those, about 30 were Singaporean or permanent residents. Comparatively, the local medical school intake rose by about 200 students over the same period. "As we now train more doctors locally, the number of overseas medical schools with registrable basic medical qualifications can thus be moderated down," they said.
Full report on the CNA site