Ken Loach started out as a television director at the BBC

Mr Loach shot to prominence with his hard-hitting 1966 television drama Cathy Come Home, which helped to change the laws on homelessness.

After studying law at Oxford, he got his big break as a television director at the BBC and went on to make many films including Kes, Land and Freedom, Felix and My Name is Joe.

Mr Loach will be made a Doctor of Letters at a ceremony at the university on Thursday afternoon.

The filmmaker has received a number of awards over the years for his work.

His accolades include Hidden Agenda, which won the Special Jury Prize at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival; Riff-Raff, which took the Felix award for Best European Film of 1992 and Raining Stones, the winner of the Cannes Special Jury Prize for 1993.

Land and Freedom also won Mr Loach the FIPRESCI International Critics Prize and the Ecumenical Jury Prize at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival.

His most recent film, Ae Fond Kiss, centres around the lives of a mixed race couple in Glasgow's south side.

It is due to be released next year.

Mr Loach was born in Nuneaton, Warwickshire in 1936 and attended King Edward VI Grammar School in the town.