Pursuant to the Board of Foreign Service Examinations’ (BFSE) Resolution No. 03-12 dated 29 August 2012 on the Procedures for the Conduct of the FSO Examinations, which states that “Candidates from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and Foreign Service Institute (FSI) who (1) have regular or permanent items; (2) possess Civil Service professional grade eligibility or its academic equivalent; (3) obtained at least a “Very Satisfactory” performance rating for three consecutive years prior to their application for the FSO Examination may take, instead of the Civil Service Commission (CSC) -administered Qualifying Test, the Test on English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL)”, the BFSE provides the following guidelines:

•Submit duly accomplished FSO Examination application form and requirements not later than 22 and June 2015 at Foreign Service Posts/Regional Consular Offices and the BFSE Secretariat, respectively. •The TOEFL in iBT format shall be taken within the period 16 May – 16 August 2015 only; •The official result or score report on the TOEFL iBT should be submitted to the BFSE Secretariat, 2nd floor, DFA Building, 2330 Roxas Boulevard, Pasay City on or before 16 September 2015; •Only those who obtain a score of 95 and above from the TOEFL iBT shall be considered “PASSED” and shall be allowed to proceed to the Preliminary Interview; and; •The cost of the TOEFL iBT shall be shouldered by the applicants. Those who would opt to take the CSC-administered Career Service Examination for FSO (Qualifying Test) should inform the BFSE Secretariat upon filing of their application and pay the required Php500.00 fee in order to have their application form submitted to the CSC for the issuance of the Exam Permit. Those who applied for the CSC-administered Qualifying Test are not allowed to take the TOEFL iBT. For more information about the TOEFL iBT, please visit its website: www.ets.org/toefl.