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The future of batik looks brighter after the Solo Education Agency announced on Monday that the study of the traditional textile would be introduced at schools across the city.

Rakhmat Sutomo, head of the agency, said batik-making would become part of the curriculums at elementary, junior high and high schools once teachers had completed a training course this year.

“We are currently drawing up the standards for the required materials, class hours and the objectives of this subject,” Rakhmat told the Jakarta Globe.

Batik has been on quite a roll recently. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) officially recognized batik as a cultural treasure in October last year.

The education agency has instructed every school in the Central Java city to send one teacher to the training program, which is being jointly organized by the agency and batik makers in Kauman and Laweyan, Solo, which are centers of production.

Solo is internationally renowned for its batik, and Rakhmat said the decision to teach batik-making in schools came about from the city’s desire to maintain this image.

“We hope that with this program, we can create job opportunities for high school and vocational school graduates. If they want, they can start their own batik businesses,” Rakhmat said.

At elementary schools, he said, pupils would be introduced to batik-making tools and the craft itself on a theoretical basis. Students at junior high schools would be provided with basic training in making batik, and at the high school level students would be involved in batik-making, from the creation of motifs all the way through to marketing and management techniques.

Gunawan Setiawan, a batik designer and chairman of the Kampung Batik Kauman community, welcomed the agency’s initiative.

“We are now training hundreds of teachers to understand the history of batik and the batik-making process,” Gunawan said. He also encouraged other batik centers like Pekalongan and Yogyakarta to introduce similar programs.