It's good for teaching if you're not given the chance to avoid some work. In C, you have to deal with low-level string representation. Once you're at a level where you're able to learn this stuff, that's a good thing.

My own university's software engineering bachelor requires at least basic knowledge of Java (introduction to programming, object-oriented programming, software engineering), C (system programming), Haskell (functional programming), Prolog (logic-oriented programming), Assembly (prerequisite for compiler writing) and some web development language (web engineering course, typically PHP), and offers additional courses that touch on PostScript, Forth (stack-based languages), C++, and more.