Stealing Time: Postcolonial Bureaucracies and the Iron Cage of Education

Abstract

This commentary argues that bureaucratic time theft is a form of postcolonial governance that extracts citizens’ time, energy, and dignity through redundant administrative procedures rooted in colonial mistrust. Using higher education as a key site, it shows how such systems sustain structural inequality and proposes pathways to escape this “iron cage” through trust-based and transparent institutional reform.