Education campaigner Malala Yousafzai will tonight be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

The youngest person ever to receive the honour, she will be handed a gold medal and diploma at a ceremony in Oslo, joining the ranks of laureates including Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and Aung San Suu Kyi.

The teenager was jointly awarded the peace prize with Indian children's rights activist Kailash Satyarthi for her "heroic struggle" in favour of girls' access to education.

Malala began speaking out for the rights of girls at the age of 11.

The 17-year-old came to prominence after surviving an assassination attempt in October 2012 when her calls for equal rights angered militants in her native Pakistan.

She was just 15 when she was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman in Swat District, in the country's north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Malala was airlifted first to Dubai and then on to Birmingham, where she was treated for life-threatening injuries at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

Unable to return to her homeland due to continued threats, she is now based in Birmingham.

She was in a chemistry class at Edgbaston High School for Girls in October when she learned she had won the prize - and decided to see out the rest of the school day before fronting a press conference.

Malala said then: "My message to children all around the world is that they should stand up for their rights."

The Nobel Prize committee said: "Despite her youth, Malala Yousafzai has already fought for several years for the right of girls to education, and has shown by example that children and young people, too, can contribute to improving their own situations.

"This she has done under the most dangerous circumstances.

"Through her heroic struggle she has become a leading spokesperson for girls' rights to education."