Maybe of course. Many in Russia and without a tower are working as leads / IT directors / organizers of the development, receiving a normal European salary of 5k euros. Only the separation of theory and practice is not entirely correct. The theory of course, none of the employers need, but everyone needs ready-made projects on assignment.
If the theory in your understanding is knowledge - how to write (or organize development) any medium-large web-project, so that the team could work with it comfortably, so that when adding features (development) - to write it would not get slower and slower, so that the project would not bazhnym and was not full of holes - then yes it is necessary. Only in a higher educational institution - the maximum will be given to an understanding of what and why patterns - and that is not a fact.
Such a “theory” can be learned only by working in an IT company where there are> 3 programmers for at least 3 years - if you do not kick at work, but go towards the goal of developing and increasing your value in the human resources market.
He himself learned 2 courses and went to work progger - leaving the tower. What is overly happy after 8 years))