The study of 15,500 people born in 1990 shows that maternal education had "no statistically significant effect" on education later backgrounds children disadvantaged, so that disadvantaged children did benefit, get best results into their national curriculum tests 11 and their GCSES.
At GCSE level, their results were found in 7% better than their peers who were not followed by nursery. Their chances of getting an A * grade C pass in maths and English, improved by 4 or 5 percent.
However, improving tails at the time of the A-levels - even though the chances of a teenager from a home course disadvantaged University improves if they attended the nursery.
Nursery education is likely to have a more significant impact on girls 'education than boys', according to the study, led by Professor Ian Walker at Lancaster University Management School. "Girls who went to the preschool significantly better in all tests of score at different ages and in all subjects", the researchers write. "Pre-school attendance seems to be beneficial for girls, while the effect on the results of tests of boys are generally not significantly different from zero."
The study also found that children who attended the nursery were likely to feel happier during their school days. They have been found to put more efforts in their schoolwork and seemed to have more friends than those who did not.
They were also less likely to be out of education or employment at the time that they reached their twenties and less likely to smoke, try cannabis, or become teenage mothers. "They are also less likely to have been suspended from school or be responsible for acts of vandalism, shoplifting problem behaviours and similar,"the research concluded.
The positive results were "largely confined" to those from disadvantaged groups, leading researchers to assert: "the fact that they are strong for those from disadvantaged backgrounds suggests that subsidies are subordinate instead of the universal."
