Cameron will also commit the government to implementing in full the recommendations of a review of prison education soon being published by Dame Sally Coates, the former headteacher who now runs a chain of academies. She is expected to call for governors to have more control over prison education budgets, instead of prison education services being run through regional programmes.
Coates will also work alongside Laws and Teach First, the programme that recruits high-achieving graduates into teaching, on a new initiative intended to ensure that prison education also attracts first-class recruits.
Cameron’s speech is the latest in a series of initiatives in recent weeks addressing life chances. In his party conference speech last autumn he said he wanted his second term in office to be marked by progress on social reform, and No 10 is making a series of announcements now because it thinks domestic politics will soon be entirely dominated by the EU referendum.
The speech will be warmly welcomed by Michael Gove, the reform-minded justice secretary who has spoken passionately about the need to improve prison education, although this will not necessarily have any effect on Gove’s decision whether or not to back Cameron’s campaign to keep Britain in the EU. Gove – a Euro sceptic by instinct – is said to be agonising over what to do, whereas most other cabinet ministers are now aligned with the in or out camps.