Having been a teacher's assistant on courses the answer is very clearly and emphatically: Yes.
It's easy to discount the accessibility of a syntax when you are already at the top of the learning curve, but the Algol family will always be tougher to teach/learn than the BASIC family. Punctuation is harder than you think. (Aside: partly why I think JavaScript is actually the easiest to teach in the Algol-inspired family for the benefit of having optional semicolons alone.)
«Or that any of those is less accessible than VB6?»
That's not an anecdote I have first hand experience with. I think there are a lot of cranky VB6 developers that sneer that VB.NET is worse and so much harder than VB6, but my gut tells me that that may be more the relative learning curve/gap in moving from VB6 to VB14. I don't think it is anywhere near as representative of the accessibility of learning VB14 as a first language. (I also think the more important question is the accessibility of moving from Office VBA to VB14, as it still seems for a lot of disciplines Office VBA is the most important first step towards programming.)
«The untrained masses have a way into getting hooked on tools that are harder but offer no benefit compared to many other stuff available around.»
I'm not sure what you are getting at here. I don't think VB.NET is any "harder" than C# and while VB.NET might not offer "more benefit" than C# (assuming you discount syntax/accessibility entirely as a benefit), it certainly is no worse than C# as a tool for a person to use.