THE TITLE OF ENGINEER IN PORTUGAL

 

An engineer must be a member of OE to be awarded the title and to practice the profession (Statute, article 3).

By requiring engineers to be OE members to legally practise their profession guarantees high professional standards and reinforces credibility in this profession.

Applicants to OE must have obtained an engineering degree, or its legal equivalent, completed a training period and taken the admission exam. OE must also define  objective criteria for exemption from admission exams, and these criteria must be periodically revised. These criteria are based on the course curriculum, education means and evaluation methods (Statute, article 7).

The Admission and Qualification Regulations, annexed to the Statute, dictate the conditions under which the process of Accreditation of Engineering Courses  take place so that graduates may be exempt from admission exams, in compliance with article 7 of the Statute.      

OE’s current Admission Examination Policy exempts students of Accredited Engineering Courses from the exam. In the past, before this process took effect, the candidate’s academic curriculum was assessed case by case before exemption was granted. Should the decision be favourable, it would become the norm, that is, any candidate with the same graduation would be able to join the institution.  When the new statute was approved in 1992 by Decree-Law no. 119 of 30th June, OE published the list of courses whose graduates were admitted to OE until that date.