Thanks Jim: I was already very well aware of the Critics Group, not least because of your previous postings, but also from contact with other traditional singers including Sandra Kerr, and from my reading including the book, "Singing from the Floor" which was last year's requested Christmas present. I just wish I'd known about it when I was in London in the 1960s as a student in the East End!
However, I don't want to enter into an argument on semantics, but much of what you say in your paragraph about " the exercises McColl devised....." applies equally and on a continuing basis to what current singing "tutors", "mentors", "advisers" are working to communicate to the current generation of singers, whether on university courses or at vocational workshops. I would hope, as I saud before, that young singers re nit programmed into some formulaic way of singing (especially for auditions) and can still "make a song my own". This is the sort of stuff we do in our regular "Singers' Gathering" events organised through the TMSA (Traditional Music and Song Association of Scotland): it's not just about learning more songs, technique and self-assessment/improvement) comes into it too.
The evidence of my eyes and ears, at least up here in Scotland, is that many young singers, 45-50 years my junior, are making a grand job of carrying on the tradition, whether they learn their songs at Uni or at their mothers' and friends' (other Bothy Balladeers') knees. (Oh yes, there are some who totally murder well-loved songs by chopping up the words between some funky guitar groove - I'll not name them! ) Thanks to the internet and various comprehensive library collections being available those of today's young up-and-coming traditional singers that I have met are on the whole, very well informed (again, whether via University ot just their own personal research.) And that's not just down to their own initiative, but the inspiration provided by their tutors when talking of just the scenario you describe.
As it happens, I was at the Glasgow Ballad Workshop this afternoon, which was set up by Anne Neilson and Gordeanna McCulloch some 5 or 6 years ago. Some aspects of it, run on similar lines to those you describe re The Critics' Group: and we often get young folk from the Royal Glasgow Conservatoire attending: not so many today as the subject was "Nostalgia" - which did evoke more than one mention of Ewan McColl, Peggy Seeger - and The Critics' Group. There were similar things going on in Glasgow around that time too, which were also mentioned, including " The Ballad Club" in Rutherglen Academy.
Now I'll apologise for a wee bit of thread drift too! ( And complete my evening by listening to the OP's link!)