Open source contributions being a great way to learn and to pad out your CV has been considered good advice on all sides of the various seas I’ve lived throughout my career too - it’s not just a dubious code camp thing.
A robust open source profile is my single favorite hiring profile indicator. However, with the current state of things, if I get a whiff of AI-driven "contribution" it becomes an instant black mark against the candidate.
It would be wonderful if the instructors at those schools built relationships with open source maintainers and the maintainers knew when their students were submitting PRs.
Could be used as a teaching experience that many maintainers would be happy to participate in, instead of feeling attacked with random low quality PRs.
You might be underestimating the number of little schools, and computer shops. I can recall even back in 2005, there were HTML shops popping up here and there, in little cities around the world.
Every single job application form that has a field for your github profile is at fault for this. Juniors trying to break into the industry are trying very hard to check every box.
I've never asked for or looked at anyone's github or personal code as part of a job interview. Too easy to fake, and too much risk that it's something proprietary that could put me in a bad spot.
I never ran into that. I always ask the recruiters to include my GitHub account in the summaries they submit to the technical teams reviewing applications. But they never do.