There is still good instruction and good divers being trained today but, no, it is not the same, no way it could be, too much has changed.
The courses I took in the late 60s and 70s were much more split between lecture and theory and then pool/ocean. They were much longer, 8 weeks or longer and met twice a week or both days of a weekend.
People failed. A lot of them.
You had to be able to swim and swim well. There were no BCs or arm floaties.
Watermanship was expected as a prerequisite. Most of the people entering the sport were already water people and comfortable and at home in the water.
The training was much more physical.
There was harassment, turning air off, ripping masks off, yanking regs out of the mouth. Simulating entanglements. Swimming with no mask while buddy breathing around and around the pool, both without mask etc.
Most people learned from places like the YMCA or college courses instead of retail dive stores.
Equipment, where do I begin, it was different and unlike today, equipment dependency was not really possible since there was very little to depend upon.
A lot of free diving, had to recover, I think it was ten pounds, from twenty feet and swim two lengths of the pool.
There was a lot of class time spent on gas laws, calculating SAC and extrapolating that to underwater use. The dive tables were a part of every class. The SPG was not ubiquitous, the J valve was.
Each water portion of the class ended with lap swimming. Sometimes in gear and weighted other times without any gear. And I definitely recall what failed me in 1966 (I was just a child) I could not lift the double tanks and do the over the shoulder flip. The second thing that failed me was the swim sans gear with a weight belt on. I was a swimmer, on a swim team, not like I was not good at it. But two years growth and when I was fourteen I completed the course with no issues.
There were tests, written and water skills.
Then, and my instructor was exactly like the fictional hero, at least to me:
Now:
My typical equipment in my advanced class in 72:
My equipment now:
N