Free nursery care for middle classes spreads funds 'very thinly', Ofsted warns Sue Gregory, the regulator's director of education, is expected to argue that the current universal entitlement to free education for all three and four year olds spreads money thinly. Instead she will argue that funds should be targeted at disadvantaged two-year-olds. She will compare the proposal to the pupil premium, a Government scheme that gives extra funding to the poorest children. In a lecture at the Foundling Museum on Monday, Ms Gregory is expected to say: "Universal provision has spread resources very thinly and it is crucial that lessons are learnt from current schemes in operation. Schools receive additional funding for their most disadvantaged pupils through the pupil premium. A similar scheme could work in early years to help ensure that high quality staff are employed where the two-year-old offer is most needed. Ms Gregory will also call for higher pay for nursery workers, who should be better qualified. Under the current system, she will claim aspirant veterinary assistants need four good GCSEs, including English and maths, whereas those training to work in nurseries have no set entry requirements. "If we are serious about investing in the future, all those working with young children should be highly skilled and qualified to degree level," she will argue. If we are serious about investing in a better qualified workforce we should pay more. Nursery staff wages often hover around the minimum and even a graduate early years professional earns only half a teacher's salary. A Department for Education spokesman said: "All three and four-year-olds are already entitled to free early education. We are expanding this entitlement so that around 130,000 two-year-olds will have 15 hours of free early years education from next September, doubling to more than a quarter of a million two-year-olds from September 2014. We want to improve the quality of early education and childcare qualifications. We asked Prof Cathy Nutbrown to look at this and we will respond to her recommendations shortly.