Itqan: Oman Digitizes Legal Training in Omantel Deal

Oman's justice sector is getting a digital upgrade. The Ministry of Justice and Legal Affairs has signed an agreement with Omantel to build "Itqan," an integrated, cloud-based platform for training and qualifying the Sultanate's lawyers and legal advisers, replacing a patchwork of manual, in-person processes with a single national system.

📋 Key Takeaways

• The Ministry of Justice and Legal Affairs and Omantel signed the Itqan agreement in early September 2026, with Times of Oman reporting the pact on September 9 and Oman Observer following up days later.
• Itqan will be a cloud-based training environment accessible across all of Oman's governorates, not just Muscat.
• The platform standardizes training and evaluation criteria, monitors trainee performance, and hosts a digital legal library covering legislation, professional ethics, legal research, drafting and consultation skills.
• Omantel's Chief Commercial and Operational Officer, Eng Sami bin Ahmed al Ghassani, signed on behalf of the company; Dr Yahya bin Nasser al Khusaibi, Under-Secretary of the Ministry, signed for the government side.
• The deal extends Oman's ongoing digitalisation of professional licensing and qualification, an area that has so far lagged behind consumer-facing e-government services.

⚖️ What Itqan Actually Does

According to Oman Observer, Itqan is designed to move the training and qualification of lawyers and legal advisers "into a digital environment," giving the Ministry a single system to deliver flexible training pathways instead of scheduling in-person sessions on an ad hoc basis.

Per the same report, the platform will:

• Deliver flexible training programmes and career pathways for lawyers and legal advisers
• Standardize training and evaluation criteria nationwide, so a trainee in Salalah is assessed against the same bar as one in Muscat
• Monitor trainee performance and progress through the system rather than paper records
• Provide specialized digital content on national legislation, professional ethics, legal research, drafting and consultation skills
• Build an adaptable digital legal library that can be updated as legislation changes

As Times of Oman reported, the contract was signed on behalf of the Ministry of Justice and Legal Affairs by Dr Yahya bin Nasser al Khusaibi, its Under-Secretary, while Eng Sami bin Ahmed al Ghassani, Omantel's Chief Commercial and Operational Officer, signed for the telecom operator.

Al Ghassani, for his part, framed the deal as part of Omantel's broader push into enterprise and government digitalisation contracts, noting the platform's role in "utilizing modern technologies to serve legal training and support digital transformation in the justice sector," as Times of Oman quoted him saying.

🖥️ Why a Telecom Operator Is Building a Legal Training System

Omantel taking on a government training platform is not an isolated move. The operator has spent 2026 building out its enterprise technology arm, and Itqan slots into a pattern of Omani technology firms winning contracts to digitize professional training and talent pipelines rather than just consumer connectivity. It echoes a similar training-and-talent digitization move covered on this site when the Otech-Remedy AI talent platform launched to match Omani job seekers with employers using structured digital assessments instead of manual CV screening.

For the Ministry, outsourcing the technical build to a domestic operator with national cloud and connectivity infrastructure means the platform can, in principle, reach legal practitioners in every governorate on day one, rather than requiring a slow regional rollout.

🎯 Why Now: Closing a Gap in Oman's Digital Government Push

Much of Oman's e-government progress to date has focused on citizen-facing services: commercial registration, medical reports, address lookups and consumer complaints. Professional licensing and continuing qualification for regulated professions like law have been slower to digitize. Itqan targets that gap directly, aiming to give the Ministry real-time visibility into who has been trained, to what standard, and where gaps in coverage remain across the country's governorates.

The move also fits Oman's broader digital transformation push under Vision 2040, which has already seen government ministries roll out unified portals, e-invoicing mandates and AI-assisted public services this year. A functioning legal training pipeline matters for that agenda too: as more government and business processes move onto digital rails governed by new rules, such as Oman's recently amended data protection law, the Sultanate needs a growing base of legal advisers who understand both the law and the technology it now regulates.

📈 Why This Matters for Oman

Itqan is a small system by budget standards, but it is a useful marker of where Oman's digitalisation drive is heading next: past the visible citizen-facing portals and into the back office of professional qualification and regulation. If it delivers on its stated goals, Oman's legal sector gets a standardized, trackable training pipeline instead of inconsistent regional practices, which should matter to law firms, corporate legal departments and international investors who rely on predictable legal service quality. It is also another data point for Omantel's transition from a connectivity provider into a systems integrator for government digitalisation projects, a shift worth watching as more ministries look for local partners to build sector-specific platforms rather than importing them wholesale.