Jakarta – Desperate officials are scrambling to find funds, including taking commercial loans if necessary, to pay striking teachers demanding their six months' overdue salary.

On Thursday, thousands of teachers failed to show up for classes in Madiun regency, East Java, Muna regency, Southeast Sulawesi, and the town of Lampung. But striking teachers in Purbalingga regency, Central Java, resumed work the same day after the local administration promised them that they would soon borrow money from a local development bank to pay their salary.

The Muna administration has revealed that it will copy Purbalingga's way of dealing with the problem. It plans to borrow a total of 8.5 billion rupiah (S$1.8 million) from state-owned Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI).

Muna Regent Ridwan said that the administration's move to take out a commercial loan to pay the teachers had been approved by the regency's legislative council. "This is the best alternative ... so that we will be able to pay civil servants their back pay," Mr Ridwan told Antara news agency.

The councillors decided that the administration should borrow money from banks and then ask for additional education funding from the central government to repay the loan.

Meanwhile, in Jakarta, Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Jusuf Kalla said that the central government had already disbursed funds.

An observer with the University of Indonesia, blamed the central government for the furore, saying that the government should not have entrusted all educational affairs, including budget management, to local administrations.

However, former education minister Fuad Hassan disagreed with the view that the central government was to blame, saying that the current mix-up over teachers' back pay was only a consequence of the complex decentralisation process. "This is only an example of problems in the implementation of regional autonomy."