No, the teaching of stalling and stall recovery by most civil flying schools is indeed entirely fine. A good 'demo' of the correct rate of throttle application should have rectified the student's hesistance to open the throttle briskly.
I said 'some' pilots. It is quite clear that
some schools, or, more probably,
some FIs do not bother to spend as much time on teaching stalling as others - and certainly the RAF - do. Not just my opinion, ask some of the FIEs. Some students have actually told me that they were taught NOT to use power at all during stall recovery, until they reach the 'recover from ensuing descent' stage......
Hardly 'minimum loss of height', I would suggest. I suspect that they weren't actually taught that - but that they simply weren't taught correctly.
How often have you come across students rushed into Ex12/13 with
minimal previous flying time spent out of the circuit......
Incidentally, for a clean stall, I would suggest trimming to no lower than the normal gliding speed. What do you do?