[InclinedPlane]

If a teacher fails to impart understanding and they give the student a passing grade then that's a failure of the teacher. If a teacher is a hard ass but has open office hours and students don't take advantage of them and end up failing then that's a failure of the students as well.

The problem here is that it's so common for students to be able to glide through course after course using rote memorization and a willingness to do busywork without attaining understanding and in so doing not only passing courses but also getting high grades. And that's a failure of student and teacher alike, but it's a failure that the students have been trained for and guided to by the system.

Again, the problem is that schools do not reward or generally even bother assessing learning. And certainly part of the fault for that lies on the student, but given that they are being passed through the system and actively rewarded for not learning I think the bulk of the blame lies on teachers and institutions. If the value of an institutional education is to provide an opportunity for auto-didactism and whether one takes that opportunity or not is not reflected in grades or degrees granted then I have to question the value of such education.