TV chef Jamie Oliver’s valiant drive (right) to get British children eating better school dinners has met with success – not just in terms of food, but in the standard of cooking.

The government plans to introduce a National Curriculum qualification for dinner ladies, according to the Department for Education and Skills.

The DfES said the qualification would cover issues such as storing and preparing fresh food and would bring a “new professionalism” into the kitchen.

Introducing specific qualifications for servers in school canteens was one of the points on Oliver’s ‘Feed me better’ petition that he presented to Tony Blair in March.

There are some 15,000 dinner ladies across the UK – only a fraction on the school lunch scene are men – and it’s hoped that all school kitchen recruits will obtain the qualification.