I got a bit more than this and the advice that if I ever did get lost in cloud to ascend to my safe altitude on instruments, trust the instruments and talk to someone who could get me back on the ground in one piece using radar vectors. I know this might not have been possible in this particular case due to terrain and location (I'm not commenting on this particular accident) but I wonder if many non-instrument PPL's are getting this advice?
Most schools do teach a bit more than this, and quite right IMHO. I was once told that a pilot with no IMC experience would loose control in about 40 seconds if s/he entered cloud. I don't know how true that really is, certainly instrument flight has never seemed
that hard to me.
Before I got my IMC rating if I'd got into cloud over Snowdonia and the 180 degree turn didn't work I would have continued away from the mountains, told ATC what was happening and taken it from there. It's possible that this pilot simply ran out of time.