Chancellor George Osborne is set to announce his eighth Budget today with improvements in education at the top of his wish-list.

The budget speech is expected to start at 12.30pm.

Mr Osborne said: "The Budget I'll deliver today will put the next generation first.

And at its heart will be a bold plan to make sure that every child gets the best start in life.

"It is simply unacceptable that Britain continues to sit too low down the global league tables for education.

"So I'm going to get on with finishing the job we started five years ago, to drive up standards and set schools free from the shackles of local bureaucracy.

"I also want to support secondary schools that want to offer their pupils longer school days with more extracurricular activities like sport and art.

"So we'll fund longer school days for at least 25 per cent of all secondary schools.

"Now is the time for us to make the bold decisions and the big investments that will help the next generation, and that is what my Budget today will do."

EDUCATION

Every state school in England will become an academy by 2022 as he unveils a £1.5 billion package of additional funding for education in the Budget.

The cash will also allow some secondaries to offer a longer school day, remaining open after the traditional "home time bell" at 3.30pm for five hours or more a week of additional lessons or extracurricular activities.

The plan has come under fire from teaching unions, with the National Union of Teachers accusing the Chancellor of "undoing over 50 years of comprehensive public education at a stroke".

More than 4,000 schools have already taken on academy status, freeing them from local authority control and giving headteachers and governors more power over discipline, curriculums and budgets.

The Conservative manifesto for last year's general election promised to extend the status to all coasting and failing schools, and Prime Minister David Cameron last autumn set the ambition to make every state school an academy.

Mr Osborne will set out plans to require every school in England to either convert to academy status by 2020 ,or to have a plan in place by that date to do so by 2022.

New powers will allow the Government to intervene in any school which fails to draw up a plan to ensure that academy conversion takes place.

Schools will be able to bid for new flexibility to tailor the structure and duration of their school day to suit their pupils' needs.

At least a quarter of secondaries will be given funding to provide at least an additional five hours a week of lessons and activities including sports and art.

In total, Mr Osborne will announce more than £1.5 billion in additional funding to drive up standards in education over the course of the current parliament.

The cash comes on top of decisions at November's Spending Review to protect the schools budget in real terms and increase total financial support for education by over £10 billion a year by 2019/20.

Responding to press speculation of an announcement on academy schools, NUT deputy general secretary Kevin Courtney said: "Parents will be as outraged as teachers that the Government can undo over 50 years of comprehensive public education at a stroke."

He added: "The Government's ultimate agenda is the privatisation of education with schools run for profit.

For Labour, shadow education secretary Lucy Powell accused ministers of ignoring a warning by the Chief Inspector of Schools Sir Michael Wilshaw highlighting "serious weaknesses" in academy chains.

CUTS

Mounting concern about the global economy will cast its shadow over Mr Osborne's Budget, with the Chancellor planning to impose a further £4 billion of spending cuts to allow him to meet his fiscal target of getting the nation's finances into surplus by the next election.

The Financial Times reported that he will be forced to admit he has missed one target to cut Britain's debt as a share of GDP this year.

The Chancellor has blamed uncertainty over the prospects of China and the eurozone for dispelling the sunny mood of the Autumn Statement four months ago, when he said that higher-than-expected tax receipts would allow him to avoid cuts.

FUEL DUTY

All eyes will be focused on whether Mr Osborne hikes fuel duty for the first time in five years - raising £1 billion for every 2p on a litre at the pumps - despite pressure from Conservative MPs to hold back.

TRANSPORT

Already trailed ahead of the Budget is a £300m package of investment in transport infrastructure in the North of England - including a green light for the HS3 plan to improve east-west rail links - as well as £80m to take forward planning for the £27 billion Crossrail 2 north-south train line through London.

HOUSING

Mr Osborne is also expected to confirm plans for a new £1.2 billion fund to release brownfield land for 30,000 new starter homes, as well as trials of driverless cars on British motorways, and he will confirm plans to crack down on the abuse of personal services companies by public sector workers seeking to minimise their tax bills.

PENSIONS

The Chancellor this month ruled out any radical changes to pension tax after plans for a raid on the retirement savings of millions of workers prompted a backlash from backbench MPs.

Mr Osborne had been considering scrapping higher-rate tax relief in favour of a new "pension Isa" that would have cost some savers hundreds of thousands of pounds in missed benefits and saved the Treasury billions of pounds a year.