In recent years, the importance of high quality in education and care for young children has been increasingly acknowledged and reflected in a high number of European strategies, policies and programmes between the European Commission and the Member States. In 2011, the Council of the EU formally recognizes the central impact of early years service provision for individual, societal, and economic success. In the EU 2020 strategy, providing high-quality and accessible education and care are a key element. International skill survey results (Pisa 2012 (OECD) and Pirls/Iglu 2011 (IEA)) document the relation between early childhood education and care (ECEC) and school performance which is fundamental for individual development and therefore the key to the future. Improving the general access to and enhance the quality of education for preschool teachers and education directors as well as supporting their personal development will ensure a contribution to the European targets. With regard to the above mentioned points, the aim of the EduTeach project is to design, test and implement a modular training programme adapted to the needs and interests of those responsible in education and care for young children (0-6 years) across Europe. To allow both flexible and individual learning, the training offers will be based on ICT and incorporate a fair balance between interactive and self-study learning activities. Using the results from the user needs analysis and the evaluations of the implementation of trainings, EduTeach further tends to forward research and development on models, methods, and didactic strategies for effective online training to educators, preschool teachers and education directors. The set of individual project objectives serves the aim above, and includes: - development of a series of interactive, media-enriched learning modules; - establishment of a database including digital learning material in 8 European languages; - development of a learning platform that will serve as the host environment for the online training programmes; - piloting and implementing the developed set of online learning modules with more than 300 preschool teachers and education directors in the participating countries and using the feedback to further develop the digital tools; - recommendations and guidance on effective e-learning services for the target group; - reaching out with education opportunities to employees with restrictions due to family, time, finances, and locality; - inviting all relevant stakeholders to get involved at a national and transnational level, both in terms of contributing to the project activities and in terms of benefiting from the developed tools. The activities of the project will be centered on four main intellectual outpus, namels 1) Joint scientific research: user needs analysis and methodology development, 2) E-learning platform, 3) Set of educational materials: curriculum and training content, and 4) Report on testing and implementation. The consortium will organize and host several multiplier events with practitioners and stakeholder organizations and conduct three training programmes to test and implement the developed modules. The project consortium of EduTeach is led by the Innovation in Learning Institute at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany, and includes Militos Consulting S.A. (Greece), Spanish Federation of Early Childhood Education Centres (Spain), IPAK Inštitut za simbolno analizo in razvoj informacijskih tehnologij (Slovenia), Università degli Studi di Macerata (Italy), StePS srl (Italy), Innovation Training Center (Spain), Akademie für Kindergarten, Kita und Hort Brode und Hovermann OHG (Germany), Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME) and City of Tampere, Early childhood and basic education (Finland).