Study Medicine or Dentistry in Pembroke – ASOMI College of Sciences (ACS)

ASOMI College of Sciences, ACS for short, is a private higher-education college on Malta, licensed by the Maltese higher-education authority MFHEA since 2020. It grew out of the Italian osteopathy academy ASOMI in Turin and has developed within a few years into a health-sciences college offering physiotherapy, osteopathy, dental hygiene, psychology and health management. The most important step came recently: together with the Medical University of Plovdiv, a Bulgarian state university founded in 1945, ACS offers a six-year Medicine programme and a six-year Dentistry programme, both taught entirely in English.

The model is a franchise. Plovdiv provides the curriculum and the teaching staff, who teach on site and partly by video link; ACS provides the campus, the laboratories and the library. The diploma carries the name of the Medical University of Plovdiv, so it is a Bulgarian state degree. For you that means studying on Malta, in an English-speaking EU environment with a Mediterranean climate, and graduating from an established state university.

The campus is spread across three sites in Pembroke, Swieqi and St Julian's, all a few minutes apart on the north-east coast of the island. For the pre-clinical subjects there is an anatomy hall with virtual 3D dissection tables and AR headsets, chemistry and biology laboratories, and a dental simulation lab with phantom heads and treatment units. The first cohort started with 28 students, most of them from Italy. Groups are correspondingly small and contact with lecturers is close.

Ownership and leadership

ACS is run as a private company; its directors include Dario Silvestri, who also heads the ASOMI Accademia di Osteopatia in Turin. Since 2025 the college has held the Erasmus Charter for Higher Education and can offer exchange semesters within the EU.

• Medicine: six years, 360 ECTS, taught in English, diploma awarded by the Medical University of Plovdiv; clinical training on Malta and at European partner hospitals.
• Dentistry: six years, 360 ECTS, taught in English, diploma awarded by the Medical University of Plovdiv; practical training in the college's simulation laboratory and in partner clinics and practices.

Both programmes last six years and comprise 360 ECTS with around 9,000 learning hours, fully on campus and in English. The early years belong to the foundations: anatomy, histology, biochemistry, physiology, microbiology and pathology, taught according to the curriculum of the Medical University of Plovdiv. The anatomy hall with its virtual dissection tables and the science laboratories on the Pembroke campus are built for exactly that.

From the middle of the programme the clinical subjects move to the fore. Practical training takes place in hospitals on Malta and at partner institutions in other European countries; in dentistry it additionally takes place in the college's simulation laboratory and in partner practices. The sixth year is the practical year, with rotations through the major disciplines. At the end come the state examinations following the Bulgarian model and the award of the diploma by the University of Plovdiv.

To apply you need a general higher-education entrance qualification (A-levels, high-school diploma or equivalent) and a criminal-record certificate, because medicine is a regulated clinical profession. No particular grade average is required. Admission is decided by an entrance test in biology and chemistry, the content of which is set by the Medical University of Plovdiv. When you apply through Medschool Experts, you sit this test online. Teaching is entirely in English; solid school-level English is enough, and a formal certificate is not currently required.

The application window is long: it opens in February and closes at the end of September, with studies starting in November. If you need one more summer after school, you have more room here than at many other locations.

Whether we can place you at this faculty is something we check individually. In a free consultation we look at your profile, your budget and your personal preferences and tell you concretely whether Malta is the right fit, or whether one of our other partner universities suits you better.

Tuition is 15,500 EUR per year, the same for Medicine and for Dentistry, payable per semester. Over six years that adds up to 93,000 EUR in tuition fees. The college does not publish an application fee; anything that comes on top we clarify with you before you apply.

For living costs on Malta you should budget 900 to 1,100 EUR per month. A room in a shared flat in Pembroke, Swieqi or St Julian's costs roughly 400 to 600 EUR, a studio 650 to 900 EUR. Public transport is cheap: a monthly pass for the entire island bus network costs under 30 EUR, and students often pay less. Eating out and grocery shopping are at southern European levels.

The diploma is not awarded by the college itself but by the Medical University of Plovdiv, a state university in Bulgaria. Bulgarian degrees in medicine and dentistry are listed in Annex V of the Professional Qualifications Directive 2005/36/EC. They are recognised automatically in every EU member state as well as in Switzerland, without an equivalence assessment and without a knowledge test. The programme is coordinated with the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and the national accreditation agency and runs under Maltese and Bulgarian law in parallel.

What you do need is language proficiency. If you want to work in a country whose language is not your native language and in which you have not previously lived, two proofs are usually required: a general language examination at level B2 in the national language, and a specialist language examination in that language for medicine, or for dentistry respectively. The knowledge test that applies to degrees from outside the EU does not apply here — only the language requirement remains.

Because the programme on Malta started only recently, there are no graduates yet. We accompany you through the recognition procedure in your target country and know how the process works from the inside.

Pembroke lies on the north-east coast of Malta, right next to St Julian's and the nightlife district of Paceville. The campus is a few minutes' walk from the sea, the sandy beach at St George's Bay is about one kilometre away and the rocky swimming coves of Pembroke are even closer. Valletta, the capital with its baroque streets, is half an hour away by bus.

The climate is one of the arguments for Malta. With an annual average of a good 19 degrees the island is among the warmest regions in Europe. In August temperatures sit around 32 degrees and the sea reaches 26 to 27 degrees; even in January the thermometer shows 12 to 20 degrees during the day. Around 3,000 hours of sunshine a year, with rain falling almost only between November and February. English is an official language alongside Maltese, so you get through daily life without learning a new one.

Malta International Airport (MLA) near Luqa is about twelve kilometres from campus, a quarter of an hour by car. From there Lufthansa, Ryanair, easyJet, Wizz Air and others fly directly to most major European cities, with several daily connections to the large hubs.