You are 100% correct, teachers and education system do make a difference. In my case our section got an excellent math teacher but the other section's teacher was not good and all my friends in that section stayed weak in math and still blame their teacher as he never addressed their problems and paid attention to individual needs.
Unfortunately I still find the system a problem to address the different understanding levels of kids in the same grade. It's one fits all system. Yes it's very much same here in Canada too!