EARLY PROJECT NEEDS ANALYSIS

EARLY is dedicated to ensuring that current and future preschool teachers can develop and update their skills to provide education and training to young children in different situations. University courses for these professions do not always provide training regarding “online and digital education for early years children”. So, preschool teacher candidates mainly focus on face-to-face teaching activities. The lack of knowledge in this regard has already been reflected in the applications of current preschool teachers since many current preschool teachers complain that not being able to interact with children because of the pandemic situation and because the schools have been closed from time to time, their teaching processes have been affected negatively. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted that different aspects of the educational process must be able to be carried out even in the absence of the presence of face-to-face education. This emergency also highlights the need for early education to be carried out in other situations (sick children, disability situations, and in various emergencies) and also in situations of normality, in support of learning at home, and in support of family members' ability to care for young children. For this reason, preschool teacher candidates need to be prepared for different situations requiring to support children through distance education and they need to learn how to involve parents in the educational process in order to get efficiency during distance education in the best possible ways.