Cooking lessons will for the first time become compulsory at secondary schools, the children's secretary has announced.
Ed Balls said on Tuesday that from September of this year, 85 per cent of the schools which at present teach food technology will be required to introduce practical cookery lessons for pupils aged between 11 and 14.
Furthermore, the remaining 15 per cent of secondary schools will need to launch the lessons by 2011.
The proposal forms part of the government's drive to improve public health and Balls declared that over the next three years, 800 cookery teachers will be trained.
He told the BBC: "I think it is right to act now and maybe we should have acted earlier but we are acting now.
"We are preparing people for the future so we can teach our younger people to be healthier adults in the future."
However despite the plans being welcomed by the NUT union, headteachers' leaders said decisions on specific subjects should "be made at school level".
"Now they have fallen at the first fence, creating another entitlement and more compulsion for this age group," John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders said.
