Registration mechanism for new students at the institute: • The students are enrolled by the registration section accompanied by proof of acceptance in the institute. • After the confirmation of the civil number, he\she will fill out the application form approved by the Ministry. • Official papers required: (passport, civil ID, good conduct certificate, 8 colored personal photographs). • Upon registration and prior to the commencement of the study, the student should perform medical examinations through the form he receives from the registration and admission committee of the health institutes.

Special attention is given to students with low efficiency to help them cope up with some courses through remedial classes and academic advising. The internet offers opportunities to employ many different entry points to learning and providing additional support to student’s knowledge and studding skills which is available to the OPI students through Wi-Fi and the multimedia lab.

An academic advisor is appointed for each student from among the institute’s faculty at the beginning of each academic year. A student may request to change the academic advisor at an appropriate point of time and according to the established policy.

The OPI library provides books and references related to pharmaceutical specialties like pharmacology, pharmaceutics, pharmacy practice, pharmaceuticals chemistry, etc., as well as audiovisual resources in the same specialty. The library has a subscription to four specialized scientific journals. The OPI library contributes with both the Oman Nursing Institute library and the Oman Specialized Nursing Institute library in providing the services to faculty and students of all health institutes in Muscat.

The Multimedia Lab in OPI provides facilities dedicated to integrating creative technology with teaching and learning. It is equipped with computers, printers, LCD projector and prepared with access to the internet. The multimedia lab provides a learning environment for students to develop their information technology skills and pharmacy practice skills through the application of software that are taught and trained to students such as: PCCAL: Pharmacy Consortium for Computer-Aided Learning (PCCAL) PCCAL is a computer simulated experiments and interactive exercises. Computer aided learning is modern way that allows the student to independently study various aspects in pharmaceutical sciences. It does not only contain scientific subjects to be learned by the student, but it also contains multiple interactive student evaluation exercises. After completing each student’s task on the computer, the program will evaluate the student’s performance and achievement. By this way the student should be able to independently augment his learning capacity and improve his scientific knowledge. Symyx Draw 3.2: Symyx Draw is a program helping in teaching the students how to draw chemical structures by different drawing techniques. Alshifa HIMS: Alshifa Health Information Management System is a fully integrated graphical user interface application system for hospital management developed and used in the ministry of health’s institutions. The students are introduced to the main features of the system and practically trained to use the components and functions of the pharmacy module such as: dispensing, medication history and information and medical stores and supplies.

In OPI the tutors use a wide range of stimulating and illustrating materials to teach the concepts outlined in the curriculum to ensure that students are actively involved in their learning. The class rooms are equipped with multimedia tools to provide the teaching materials (syllabus, assignments, discussion groups, projects, class notes, video materials and power points) for the lectures in a flexible and easy way. The institute has three main laboratories: pharmacology lab, chemistry lab and the pharmaceutics lab which are equipped with all needed supplies, chemicals and equipments for the demonstrations of the laboratory experiments of the lab courses. In, addition the institute created the dispensary which is used as a simulation room that allows the students to practice the pharmacists’ roles and duties [Institutional Pharmacy Training (Role Play Exercises)]. Role Play Exercise aims to teach the students the essential patient-care skills, including communication with other health professionals and with the patients, information-gathering, obtaining patient history, making an assessment, recommendation, writing papers and presentation. It will improve the ability of the students for counseling the patients and giving the appropriate advice about the dispensed drugs.

OPI Test

The Institute does not provide transportation or accommodation for the students starting from the academic year 2017/2018, which is currently applied to the institutions of higher education. Catering service is available to the students by providing them with different types of food with reasonable prices under supervision of the Ministry of Health.

The student is granted a monthly allowance of OR 90 for housing and transportation if the distance between the student's home and the institute is more than 50km. Furthermore, students who are living at a distance less than 50km from the institute will be granted a monthly allowance of OR 45 during the academic year. In some years, the Omani Charitable Organization provides money to the students whose families are with limited income. The student must register his or her name and bring the proof that he or she is one of the families covered by this grant.