Eligibility Criteria Relating to Previous Course Attendance:
As the STI has a limited capacity to provide training, previous participation is taken into account when considering applicants or nominees for STI courses. Ordinarily officials may not take the same course more than once.
• Attendees of courses at IMF headquarters (HQ) should generally wait two years before applying to attend another course at HQ.
• Attendees of a course given elsewhere by the IMF are not eligible to attend the same course at the STI.
Self-Financed Status:
Candidates from international agencies and advanced regional countries (Brunei Darussalam, Hong Kong SAR, Republic of Korea and Macau SAR) who apply to attend IMF training events, if accepted, will be considered self-financed. Attending as self-financed provides the same access to course content and activities, but all associated costs (accommodation, travel and per diem) need to be covered by the sponsoring institution.
Application Requirements:
• English Proficiency
All training at STI is conducted in English, and applications for STI courses must be completed in English. The STI may require an approved language test for course applicants whose working language is not English. Applicants from non-English-speaking countries will generally be required to provide scores for either the Test for English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) or the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) to show English proficiency. The IMF code for TOEFL is 5456.
• Sponsor’s Endorsement
Each applicant must be employed by an eligible governmental agency and must have a sponsor—a senior official in the agency where he or she works—complete and sign the Sponsor’s Certification Form.
Sponsors should not present applicants who fail to meet the criteria of academic background and job relevance, or who are not fluent in English. Sponsoring agencies should not submit more than three applications per course for their agency. When more than one candidate is presented, the sponsor should indicate an order of priority.
