As you look at other engineering discipline, in most cases we see PE has a higher importance in engineering fields that directly affect the wellbeing of human. For example, in order to sign off the design document for any type of structure (building, bridge, road, etc.) you are required to have your PE. Looking at the fact that software plays more prominent role in our daily life, and the fact that some of the software that are being used directly affect the wellbeing of human (i.e., air traffic management system, medical devices), it is important to have the same requirement for the people who have the sign off capability on the design documents for safety critical systems.

As to the second part of your question regarding “should we teach in line with the exam”, I do not think so. Other engineering degrees do not teach in line with the exam, they teach the fundamental that is needed for the engineering degree, and then once the student graduate, after several years of on the job training, they start preparing for the PE exam. We should follow the same process. Currently, there are two exams that deals with the certification of software developers, CSDA and CSDP, if we look at the requirements for these exams, we see that students who have graduated from software engineering program, should be able to pass the CSDA exam with little problem, and practicing software engineers/developers, with some additional preparation, should be able to pass the CSDP exam. I suspect, the PE exam will be somewhat similar to the CSDP exam.