At the end of the last millennium, schools received strong competition from the Internet, multimedia and other developed electronic media thanks to the new possibilities for gathering, processing, searching for and sending information. Furthermore, young people and adults now travel a lot, and by travelling they also learn. Never before in the history of mankind have people travelled so much, or produced and transferred information to such extent. These facts lead to numerous questions concerning school and learning. Here are only some of these questions: What is the future of the school? What and how can we learn for the future? What is optimal duration of compulsory education to allow for the development of basic competences needed for life and work? What are these competences? Is the social communication of children and young people today of a higher quality than of the young thirty or fifty years ago? How many of the competences necessary for life are acquired in school and how many are acquired in everyday life? Let us remind ourselves: in most European countries children spend more days a year out of school than in school! Only one ninth of the time during a year do children spend in school. Many of the contents and competences that we learned during our schooling are forgotten by us, cast aside and replaced with new knowledge and competences. How can we organise classes and the school to prepare for the future? The author attempts to provide answers to these and many other questions in this paper.