The Cost of Teaching Abroad

The Bulgarian visa process is grueling not only for students but also for AUBG professors. International professors cannot be paid without a residency card. There is a long line of documents to get through before obtaining one. For Associate Professor Ali Chetwynd and Assistant Professor George Clay, their journey to teaching at AUBG has been tedious over the course of a semester.

 

Both are from the UK and applied for the job in November 2024 and were interviewed in February 2025. Professor Chetwynd was a couple of weeks ahead in the process, which later proved beneficial when the time for paperwork came. Both were told the process was going to be difficult as they were applying from outside the European Union. 

 

Both professors were offered jobs in April, they began negotiations, and signed their contracts in May.

 

Professor Chetwynd had finished everything on his end prior to the academic year starting, and human resources (at AUBG) said they would begin obtaining his work permit. 

 

He says when he arrived, “I dropped in with HR and said, you know, how's it going? Is there any chance that I will get employed anytime soon? And they said, well, you know, it's all the process because they have no way of checking in. But I think the Bulgarian government is very opaque when this process is going on.”

 

HR was involved throughout the process, but did not reply for a comment. 

 

Classes began, he started teaching, and it wasn’t until right at the end of September, after not receiving any news six weeks later, that he finally got his work permit. 

 

Professor Clay also waited for his work permit back home, yet due to unexplained delays, he was forced to come to Bulgaria and start working in the hope that his visa would arrive before his 90 days expired, and he would need to return to Britain. 

 

As it happened, he said, “I got an email from HR in November saying your 90 days are nearly up, and you should leave the country.”

 

He finished teaching at about 5:30 pm on a Tuesday afternoon, read the email, and then had to get on a flight out of Sofia the next morning. He quickly adjusted and emailed his students, explaining that class would now be online for a few weeks.

  

“I couldn't come back for two months because the work permit eventually came through while I was out of the country. But after you get the work permit, you have to apply for a visa, and then once you have a visa, you then have to apply for a residence card.”

 

While back in the UK, the immigration laws are different and he was able to be paid in December because he was outside Bulgaria now. 

 

“There was a very large gap between the time we were hired and the time we were paid and that's Bulgarian law, so it's not unavoidable, but it is very frustrating I suppose,” Professor Clay said.

 

Professor Chetwynd faced a few other roadblocks. While he did not have to leave the country altogether, he spent many weekends flying back and forth to Britain. 

 

“The process to get my work permit converted into a visa was I had to go back to Britain, drop my work permit at the Bulgarian embassy there to apply. Then I had to come back here with no papers whatsoever.” 

 

For the next two and a half months, he would travel for his paperwork, and due to unexpected delays, many of the trips proved to be useless. 

 

“Right at the end of last semester, HR finally got the confirmation from the migration office who said ‘Your paperwork is legit. You can come here.’ They issued my residence card about a day before I was going home for the break. And that was just enough time for the University to pay me to my British account at the end of December. So essentially I had taught a whole semester for free with a delayed payment.”

 

The impact wasn’t just the delays in compensation and paperwork, but also his duties here at the University were strained. He explained that traveling put him behind on research, as four of his weekends last semester were spent on planes. He was doing his best to keep up with grading essays and other student work to prioritize teaching to the best of his ability. 

 

Both Professor Chetwynd and Clay say that they were made aware of the possibilities of such delays. But there is a difference between intellectually knowing that the process may take a while and then experiencing six months of uncertainty. 

 

Professor Chetwynd described it saying, “ I don't feel like I was deceived or anything, but I was probably misinformed rather than disinformed. But it’s not a big deal for me because I knew I liked Bulgaria and I know (how) this kind of job works. It was never going to be a deal breaker for me.” 

 

They are both grateful to have already been worldly individuals and experienced strained  immigration processes. While it is unfortunate that such situations occur for students and staff, they both agree from an international standpoint, it is  worth the trouble.

Edited By David Mitov and Vasil Paskov

 

 

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