I still tell students to use WERE in an exam - just in case! Not all exam boards are as enlightened at the Cambridge one. Some students sit their national exams - and the WERE form might be the one expected. Better safe than sorry! But I actually use the WAS form more often these days. I was brought up to say WERE, and would be corrected if I said WAS. However, as Su.Ki. says, times have changed. So I use them interchangeably - probably using WERE if I want to sound more formal.
So my poor students get a complete mixture of WAS and WERE from me - I simply do not notice which I'm using! But they get a warning to use WERE in an exam - JUST IN CASE. I have some students who say their own teachers (in their own countries) insist on WERE - and this probably reflects their own national syllabus.
But I imagine, in 20 years, all teachers and exam boards everywhere will accept WAS as perfectly correct. Perhaps there will be a slight distinction - WERE being used in formal situations/legal documents, and WAS being the usual form for everything else.