Ignoring your huge generalisations based on one silly picture and a bunch of Asian clichés, I think you have a point when it comes to the group thing.

When I was in school, most work & learning happened on the individual level. Sometimes in pairs, where we would have to check each other's answers. But from what I see among my younger relatives and friends with children, there's a lot of group learning going on these days. Groups of five doing all kinds of projects in pretty much any class on any subject. Maybe it's fun to collectively build a diorama of ancient rome for history class, but I doubt you'll improve your maths skills much in this way.

Is this a consequence of a teacher shortage? Are kids in these groups supposed to help other kids? Are they supposed to learn cooperating with (or leeching off) others, at the cost of learning useful skills for themselves?