Mehmood,

As Alasdair says, I don't think we can judge the answer to the first question, and anyway, it is almost certainly different from individual to individual. Ultimately, for the role they carry out, the requirement is only to be able to impart the knowledge/content that they are teaching (and not all clever people have that ability) and to understand that subject matter. Some may have no other knowledge at all, but that's unimportant as they don't need to in order to deliver what they are there to deliver, others could be utterly brilliant with knowledge and skills that go way beyond the subject matter they're teaching, but that doesn't deliver any benefit to the student.


There are many instances, not necessarily in engineering, where the pupil is, or becomes far better at what they do than their teacher, yet still derive improvementi under the skilled hands of their teacher because what the teacher has is the skill of helping people to learn/improve.  Musicians, artists, sports people are obvious examples, as are English teachers at higher levels of education, where they help guide the student through reading, critical review, etc. not so much imparting knowledge as helping guide the student through the process of critical analysis. The same could be true in engineering in guiding the student through a process of discovery to arrive at engineering solutions of their own, which may go well beyond anything the teacher has ever achieved.


I anyway think that the word clever is a very  woolly term that can mean many different things and is potentially misleading. The important part is knowledge and understanding and the skill to help people learn. 


As for the remaining questions, I feel your starting premise is fundamentally flawed as it has never been the intention that this is one set of people judging another set of people who are less clever, skilled or knowledgeable, the intention had always been that you are reviewed by a group of your peers. I, for one, as an interviewer, am never judging whether the candidate has more or less knowledge or skills than me, nor even whether their engineering decisions/solutions are right or wrong, I'm considering whether they follow a process that will lead to valid, robust engineering conclusions, with an appropriate level of rigour, using practice that is known to deliver such robust solutions, plus the 'softer' skills of being able to present findings in a way that informs their audience, allows decision making, and is carried out in a professional, principled and ethical manner. I always learn something from the candidate. 


As Alasdair says, the value isn't in the title itself, it's in the fact that it informs others, who may not know you, or who may not operate in your field, so may not have the ability to judge your merit as an engineer, that a group of your peers have reviewed you against a benchmark and decided that you do, indeed, have the necessary attributes to carry out a professional engineering role to a required standard.

Mehmood,

As Alasdair says, I don't think we can judge the answer to the first question, and anyway, it is almost certainly different from individual to individual. Ultimately, for the role they carry out, the requirement is only to be able to impart the knowledge/content that they are teaching (and not all clever people have that ability) and to understand that subject matter. Some may have no other knowledge at all, but that's unimportant as they don't need to in order to deliver what they are there to deliver, others could be utterly brilliant with knowledge and skills that go way beyond the subject matter they're teaching, but that doesn't deliver any benefit to the student.


There are many instances, not necessarily in engineering, where the pupil is, or becomes far better at what they do than their teacher, yet still derive improvementi under the skilled hands of their teacher because what the teacher has is the skill of helping people to learn/improve.  Musicians, artists, sports people are obvious examples, as are English teachers at higher levels of education, where they help guide the student through reading, critical review, etc. not so much imparting knowledge as helping guide the student through the process of critical analysis. The same could be true in engineering in guiding the student through a process of discovery to arrive at engineering solutions of their own, which may go well beyond anything the teacher has ever achieved.


I anyway think that the word clever is a very  woolly term that can mean many different things and is potentially misleading. The important part is knowledge and understanding and the skill to help people learn. 


As for the remaining questions, I feel your starting premise is fundamentally flawed as it has never been the intention that this is one set of people judging another set of people who are less clever, skilled or knowledgeable, the intention had always been that you are reviewed by a group of your peers. I, for one, as an interviewer, am never judging whether the candidate has more or less knowledge or skills than me, nor even whether their engineering decisions/solutions are right or wrong, I'm considering whether they follow a process that will lead to valid, robust engineering conclusions, with an appropriate level of rigour, using practice that is known to deliver such robust solutions, plus the 'softer' skills of being able to present findings in a way that informs their audience, allows decision making, and is carried out in a professional, principled and ethical manner. I always learn something from the candidate. 


As Alasdair says, the value isn't in the title itself, it's in the fact that it informs others, who may not know you, or who may not operate in your field, so may not have the ability to judge your merit as an engineer, that a group of your peers have reviewed you against a benchmark and decided that you do, indeed, have the necessary attributes to carry out a professional engineering role to a required standard.