There are universities built on paper and others built on conviction. Kokand University Andijan Branch Faculty of Medicine falls firmly in the second category. Established in 2019 under Cabinet of Ministers’ Decree No. 683, it is the first private medical institution in Uzbekistan's Fergana region — a region historically known for trade, craftsmanship, and a culture that has always valued knowledge. It opened its doors during a period when Uzbekistan was actively positioning itself as a destination for international students. In the six years since, it has moved faster and built more credibly than most institutions manage in two decades.
The campus is located in Andijan, a city in the Fergana Valley, roughly 3.5 hours from Delhi by air. Before this university started drawing students, most Indian families had never heard of Andijan. That is changing steadily. The city is quieter and considerably more affordable than Tashkent — living costs run at roughly Rs 10,000 to Rs 16,000 per month compared to Rs 18,000 to Rs 28,000 in the capital. For students who are here to study medicine and not navigate a major metropolis, Andijan turns out to be precisely the right environment. Focused, unhurried, and with a growing international student community that makes the transition far smoother than most students expect.
The MBBS programme runs entirely in English across six years: five years of structured academic and para-clinical training, followed by a mandatory one-year clinical internship. At the centre of the clinical setup is the university’s own 350-bed teaching hospital, located on campus. This is not a partnership hospital across town or an affiliated facility that students visit only occasionally — it is integrated into the institution's daily academic life. Students transition to supervised patient contact in Year 3, building the kind of clinical instinct that comes only from consistent, real-world exposure, not simulated case studies alone.
What separates Kokand University from most foreign medical universities is that international students — particularly those from India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and across Africa — were built into the original design, not bolted on later. The GTTCI Trade Chamber formalised this with an MOU to develop a 55-acre Indian Medical City in Andijan, purpose-built around NMC compliance, Indian cultural infrastructure, and FMGE/NExT outcomes. Indian mess is available on campus. Indian faculty are involved in the coaching structure. FMGE/NExT preparation is woven into the curriculum from Year 1 and runs through to graduation — delivered at no additional cost. These are not amenities. They are the architecture of a university that understood from the start who it was building for.
Recognition spans every jurisdiction a medical graduate might need. The university is listed in WDOMS, approved by India’s NMC, recognised by WHO, ECFMG, and FAIMER, and licensed by both the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Innovation and the Ministry of Health of Uzbekistan. Graduates can sit for the FMGE/NExT in India, the USMLE in the United States, and the PLAB in the United Kingdom without encountering eligibility barriers in any of those systems. Alums are already practising medicine in over 30 countries. For an institution that only opened in 2019, that reach says more than any ranking can.
