Cookery lessons are to be compulsory in England's secondary schools for children aged 11 to 14. Pupils will learn to cook for an hour a week for one term. Poorer pupils' ingredients will be subsidised.
Cookery is a ministerial "expectation" but, as an optional part of the design and technology curriculum, is not currently taught in all schools. The move is part of the strategy to tackle obesity, as experts believe 1m children will be obese in a decade.
The Department for Children, Schools and Families says that about 85% of secondary schools do offer cookery in some form.
It wants those schools to make the change immediately, and the rest by 2011. The aim is to train higher level teaching assistants to do some of the teaching and to recruit more food technology teachers.
Schools Secretary Ed Balls wants to see 800 cookery teachers trained.
Speaking on BBC One's Breakfast programme, Mr Balls said the plan was tied in with the government's strategy to tackle obesity and improve people's health.
"I think it is important to act now and maybe we should have acted earlier," he said.
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