is simply a pretext for age-based rather than learning-based progress through the grades. Coincidentally, isn't it known as "social promotion"? (Note the word "social" that is also in the phrase "social skills"
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After all, if your actual goal were to teach some person social skills, then would you arrange for that person to attend classes, as a regular student, in some arbitrarily chosen academic course from which the student is likely to learn little or nothing?
Also, if the academic authority is not completely competent in the academic subject that the authority is teaching, and is spreading misconceptions among the students, then what are the odds that a student who has the understanding required to make a positive contribution to solving this problem will actually have an opportunity to make a positive contribution? First, that kind of problem cannot be identified without provoking hostility from people who have power. How is a student going to solve a problem that officially doesn't exist? I suspect that in that kind of situation a student will develop a social phobia rather than social skills.
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