Oman College of Health Sciences (OCHS) and CTU’s Wednesday meeting marked a silver-lined step toward productive cooperation, resulting in a decisive bid for representatives to travel thousands of miles from Muscat for the founding anniversary in November—an initiative that ushers in a new era with what will become the university’s first-ever ally in the Arab world.
The virtual engagement between CTU President Dr. Joseph Pepito and OCHS Dean Fahad Al-Zadjali—despite the latter being on an official inspection of CTU’s northern campuses following recent earthquakes across Cebu—reflected a warm and charismatic reception of a unified vision, one that is taking shape as a new scholarly destination for both Omanis and Filipinos.
Dr. Pepito earmarked the current provincial leadership’s strong emphasis on healthcare development as a key driver for strengthening academic collaborations in this field.
He further expressed optimism about expanding the university’s health sciences portfolio, as CTU only offers Nursing (through a consortium with Cebu City Medical Center), BS Psychology, and Doctor of Veterinary Medicine programs.
Dean Al-Zadjali—whom CTU Director Rhodora Magan previously met at a conference in Indonesia in 2022—expressed enthusiasm for collaborating with the Philippines, especially with CTU, on multiple platforms.
OCHS, established as a University College by integrating the former Ministry of Health Education Institutions (MoHEIs) by Royal Decree 18/2018, offers six undergraduate degree programs: Nursing, Pharmacy, Medical Imaging, Medical Laboratory Sciences, Physiotherapy, and Health Information Management.
The dean added that OCHS nurtures the values among Omanis and exchange students from other Gulf countries, where Oman is one of the oldest nations with a culturally vibrant heritage.
He is confident that CTU students and faculty will have the opportunity to visit Oman and experience its rich scholarly and cultural environment, a point Dr. Magan engaged with by highlighting, as the meeting progressed, the shared historical ties between Oman and the Philippines.
OCHS has steadily strengthened its programs to meet global healthcare education standards—an approach that CTU seeks to emulate as it enhances its current offerings and diversifies into more degree programs./Internationalization and ASEAN Integration
Muscat , Oman