I have teached Pascal 25 years ago. The idea was to teach the basic principles of programming (loops, variables, arrays, linked lists, sorting, etc.) without worrying about the technical details (C was too tricky, python was not there). Plus Pascal is quite simple and has very few pitfalls.

Once students where proficient in Pascal, we could introduce compiler classes and, when sufficiently advanced, show what the Pascal BNF grammar looked like. So students had a complete picture of a language. Pascal's BNF grammar is very simple.

Also, Pascal enforces strong program structures (BEGIN, END, PROCEDURE, FUNCTION, etc). which helps to frame practical work.