In 1970, Alvin Toffler in his famous book ’Future Shock’ had pointed out the challenges that arise out of "too much change in too short a period of time”. The age of computers and internet and the realisation of Moore’s law, led to what we now call the VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) World. In this constantly changing world, students can’t be restricted to the four walls of the classroom and must rather treat the world as their classroom.

In their 2015 paper for the European Journal of Open, Distance and e-learning, Michael Sean Gallagher from Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul, Republic of Korea and Pekka Ihanainen, HAAGA-HELIA University of Applied Sciences, Helsinki, Finland highlighted Aesthetic Literacy as an approach that harnesses open spaces as learning environments. The process involves alignment, attunement, data collection, composition, and reflection, continually applied in response to knowledge gaps, evolving goals, motivations, or simple curiosity. Aesthetic Literacy is portrayed as the ability to discern learning potential in everyday and open environments, systematically employing a process of learning through them. Aesthetic literacy, appropriated and broadened from its specific artistic focus as a capacity for “reading” or making meaning from artistic (everyday) material, is positioned as a means of making meaning in open environments, or as a means of enacting lifelong learning in these open spaces.

Recently, in November 2023, an article published in the e-journal of Scientific Research (an academic publisher: www.scrip.org) highlighted and emphasised on the Correlations between Aesthetic Literacy, Imagination, and Creativity Performance.

The traditional model of learning was to equip the learner for a well-defined series of skills and abilities, which led to the importance of definable learning outcomes and adoption of the ISO model by several educational institutions. This must change in the present scenario where learners have to be ready for a future that will bring with it, new challenges and therefore new opportunities if the individual is ready for it.