SA is the most unequal country in the world. The richest 10% of South Africans lay claim to 65% of national income and 90% of national wealth — the largest 90:10 gap in the world.

These inequities are mirrored in the education system, where 20% of schools are broadly functional, and 80% are mostly dysfunctional. Because of this, two decades after apartheid, it is still the case that the life chances of the average South African child are determined not by their ability, hard work or diligence, but by the colour of their skin, the province of their birth, and the wealth of their parents.

The reality is so deterministic that before a child’s seventh birthday one can predict with some precision whether they will inherit a life of chronic poverty and sustained unemployment, or a dignified life and meaningful work.

The magnitude of these inequities is incredible. We have private schools charging R300,000 a year, and public schools where children drown in pit latrines. In 2018, the top 200 high schools had more students in matric achieving distinctions in mathematics (80%-plus) than the remaining 6,600 combined. Put differently, 3% of SA high schools produce more maths distinctions than the remaining 97%. In a few years, when we look back on three decades of democracy, it is this conundrum — the stubbornness of inequality and its patterns of persistence — that will stand out as most in need of explanation, justification and analysis. This is because inequality needs to be justified; you need to tell a story about why this level of inequality is acceptable or unacceptable.

As South Africans, what is the story that we tell ourselves about inequality and how far we have come since 1994? Have we accepted our current trajectory as the only path out of stubbornly high and problematically patterned inequality? Are there different and preferential equilibriums we have not yet thought of or explored? In practical terms, how does one reach a more equitable distribution of teachers, resources or learning outcomes? And what are the political and financial price tags for doing so?

Our post-apartheid education system is an awkward fusion of apartheid systems serving post-apartheid society. What the apartheid government used to perpetuate privilege and act as a lever for rapid, poor-white social mobility, post-apartheid society uses as a lever for black middle-class mobility.

Today black and coloured learners make up 60% of those attending former whites-only fee-charging schools. Thus, a small, separate and functional school system that was created to privilege one section of the population and exclude others has remained intact. But the discriminating principle has morphed over time from race to fees.