COMMENT | Students not attending online classes should be suspended? A - COMMENT | The recent media reports that school students who have been absent for more than three consecutive online teaching sessions will run the risk of suspension from school is certainly cause for concern. This simplistic response to the less than satisfactory attendance rates, revealed by recent research, is punitive. It is a one-size-fits-all, blanket solution to a complex problem, that disregards the teaching and learning experiences of different groups of students, especially the poor and marginalised, during the Covid-19 pandemic. To address the problem, we need to take cognisance of some of the root causes of poor attendance rates to online teaching. Despite efforts to provide students with special data plans to access the internet, and in some cases to provide laptops and mobile devices for online learning, there remain serious logistical and infrastructure problems with online teaching and learning during the pandemic.