Incidentally, I first learned subversion from a student-run session on contributing to open-source, similar to the one the author ran. I went on to spend hours deciphering and studying an open source project that I was particularly fond of. I've since contributed to several open-source projects, all by teaching myself the codebase and toolchain as required.
As for the ability to learn on their own, perhaps they are spending their own time learning interesting things rather than learning shell scripting or how to use git.
Teaching version control to computer science students is like teaching calculators to mathematics majors.
Most employers expect a CS graduate to understand version control, bug tracking systems, IDEs and the like.
Most CS departments think that such things are beneath them.
The concept of a weekend extra-curricular course to bridge the gap seems ideal to me. The only problem I see is funding it.
Teaching calculators to math students may lead to learning about infix, polish, or reverse polish notation.
Teaching version control to CS students may lead to deeper understanding of data structure or database architecture.
>That some people are not good enough to contribute to open source because of their learning style is a poisonous attitude.
You may not like it, but it's true. How can you expect someone who can't learn on their own to understand your codebase enough to make meaningful contributions?
The most important skill you can have is knowing how to teach yourself new skills. If you don't have that, there is a very real, and very low, limit to what you can realisticly contribute. This applies both to the industry in general, not just open source.