Ukuleles were pretty popular when I was a kid in New Zealand in the Sixties, but I never met anybody who could play a tune on one. I remember the girl next door telling me in a tone of great self-satisfaction that she'd just learned to play some well-known song of the time, and proceeded to demonstrate - I couldn't recognize it. She'd just learned a chordal strum. (It would have helped if she'd managed to sing in the same key she was strumming in, but she was a Florence Foster Jenkins awaiting discovery).

Obviously there are tunings and techniques that let you play tunes on them, but are there educational methods that get you there, and which teachers can use? Not everybody has the Ukulele Orchestra of GB in residence.

Bad arguments for the recorder:
There's a lot of skill and coordination involved in mastering it

Which is true, but it suggests the cello, sarod, french horn and freebass chromatic accordion would be even better.