My children are now students, but there is still an unresolved tension where I expect good results, but at the same time they know my opinion - which they agree with - on the quality of the curriculum, the quality of the knowledge they are getting.

I think the situation is just as bad as in the story about the king's new clothes. Everyone is raving about the beauty of the dress, while the king is naked.

In my company, I hired the vast majority of people who were not experienced programmers or even programmers. They learned something completely different. Or if they have learned to program, it's at a level that you can't do anything with it. And sometimes they paid millions for training, or spent years on the bench, which in total cost someone millions. But the knowledge acquired was not enough.
In the multi world, it is often the case that at the end of the year we send everyone on a course because we have some money left over and we will get less next year if we have any left. Of course, colleagues are happy to leave because they don't have to work until then. It's a kind of allowance, but it's certainly not an apprenticeship.
It is also a common phenomenon at conferences that a large part of the audience is drawn from the sponsoring companies for sponsorship tickets and the primary goal is not to gain useful knowledge. Of course, the organisers and speakers are to blame for this.
After all the struggles, exams and money wasted and days, weeks and years spent in frontal training, I am quite sure of two things:
One is, people who get a degree, however unhelpful, are more likely to be systems thinkers than those who don't. Getting a grade is probably a complex task that someone can either jump or not.
The other is to provide theoretical training, course, is only useful if it is immediately followed by practice and accountability. It's quite a depressing sight to see someone's office full of the type of diplomas that prove they have attended some kind of training.

Perhaps it also includes the immortal saying of my English teacher: there are no miracles.

It's worth learning! 🙂