31 Mar, 2015
Free nursery places ‘make no academic difference’
BBC News | Education and Family | School Report | 30 March 2015
Sending three year old children to nursery may not make any difference to their academic results later on, suggest researchers.
£800m has been spent annually on free places for three-year-olds since 1998.
Researchers say the main benefit has been to make childcare cheaper for families with young children.
They conclude that while the policy may have encouraged more mothers to return to work, there was no long term effect on children’s academic development.
The studies were carried out by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) and Essex and Sussex universities.
