Ads was one of the languages used to learn basic concepts of programming at the university programme I attended.
We Lisp and Ada where the two main language that we used, to contrast the differences.
They did have to stream that intro course anyway, because irrespective of familiar syntax some people "get it" and some don't. I remember the bottom stream were named "Strugglers" but I don't remember what the stream for people it comes as second nature to is called, most people move up and down a bunch e.g. maybe they were fine right up until currying, and they go all the way from "Attend one lecture a week, complete the assigned work in ten minutes, hand in and we're done" to "I need both classes and the extra one-on-one tutorial to even understand the assignment, let alone try to do it" overnight.
Today I believe they teach Java, or possibly Python, bowing to industry pressure to churn out people who can cut code on day one, as if that's the purpose of a three year degree. Interestingly the same university's IT department just hired me based on the rationale that although I don't actually know most of the technologies they're using, I clearly can just acquire everything needed as I go. So they don't believe this bullshit, but many people hiring their graduates do, and 18 year olds pick institutions with the best hiring rates.
Because we also used Ada as our first language there.
One of the language designers was the department head for programming languages and compiler construction.