Psychologist's conduct unprofessional

Psychologist Anton Dreyer has been struck off the roll of health professional practitioners for the possible impact of his unprofessional conduct on pupils.

Pretoria - Psychologist Anton Dreyer has been struck off the roll of health professional practitioners for his lack of remorse and trivialising the possible impact of his unprofessional conduct on schoolchildren.

A board of professional experts from the Health Professions Council of South Africa yesterday told Dreyer it had been greatly disturbed by his lawyer’s submissions that “only 800” children were affected after being given psychometric tests by an unqualified person under his watch.

“We are very disturbed. For him to trivialise the future decision-making of even one child is big, and then to say there were only 800... This was an aggravating fact in the case,” board chairman Siphiwe Sithole said.

He said Dreyer’s lawyer, Roelof Boshoff, had told the hearing the inappropriate tests were “only” given over two years. “You aggravated it further by saying the tests were administered only “four times over only” two years,” Sithole said.

“On four occasions you allowed someone to give mis-tests; on four occasions you had the chance to stop them, but for two years you did not.”

Sithole was handing down sentence in the case of the industrial psychologist, found guilty in March of allowing a flawed process of psychometric testing of over 10 000 high school pupils a year over a career spanning more than a decade. He had allowed, among others, Adele du Plessis to administer the career-determining tests to children from Gauteng schools.

From the test results, the children - who came from disadvantaged backgrounds - were advised on subject choices for matric.

“They might never know the effects of the tests until much later on in their careers, and by then they might not lay charges because it is so hard to prove,” Sithole said.

He criticised Boshoff for saying, in his submissions that effects were not clear and that there was no way to prove them.

“We questioned the thinking behind that,” he said.

The professional that was Dreyer should know that many had no insight into the effects of psychological processes, and even when they appeared later in their careers they had no way of questioning the assistance in making the decisions they had made.

The sentencing brought to an end a seven-year process of hearings into Dreyer’s actions, which had been fraught with postponements and delays.

After he was found guilty this year, pro forma complainant advocate Meshack Mapholisa asked for the harshest sentence from the committees.

He said Dreyer had ruined the lives of possibly more than the 12 000 Grade 9s he had tested every year.

He told the committee a harsh sentence would serve as an example to others who could take shortcuts in providing any medically-related care to the people who depended on them.

The sentence should be a deterrent, he said, in asking for Dreyer’s licence to be withdrawn.

Boshoff had asked that the lesser sentence of a fine and reprimand be given, saying Dreyer had not known there were flaws in the processes of psychometric testing.

Upon being made aware of these, his client had taken on pupils and taught them about ethics, using his own case as an example, he had said.

Sithole said: “There has been no show of remorse and no indication of insight on his actions.

“We are worried then at what this professional teaches his students.”

He had compromised the profession and acted disgracefully, Sithole said. “The decision of this committee is final. You may appeal it.”

Boshoff said they would be appealing both the guilty finding and the sentencing.

Mapholisa said: “Justice is the winner here”.

The sentence was a landmark in an industry where such removals from the roll were few.

ntando.makhubu@inl.co.za

@ntsandvose

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