Abstract
West Papua was granted Special Autonomy status in 2008 as mandated by Government Regulation No.1/2008. Special Autonomy Law has granted more or less than 30 percent of education Special Autonomy Funds for West Papua. Thus, this study evaluates the impact of Special Autonomy Law on education attainment in Indonesia. We use panel data sets of 33 regions in Indonesia that covers the period of 2001 to 2018. We employ quasi-experiment analysis, specifically the Difference-in-difference (DID) analysis in evaluating before and after effect of Special Autonomy Law in West Papua. We further develop fixed-effect model (FEM) panel data analysis in understanding the impact of Special Autonomy Law on education by controlling socioeconomic and demographic variables. DID analysis in this study suggests that Special Autonomy Law appears to worsen education attainment in West Papua. This study further found that despite positive and significant effect of education spending share on education attainment, it appears that the realization of education spending in West Papua is relatively low. 
 
 Keywords: Special Autonomy Law, Education Attainment, Education Spending Share, DID, FEM
Highlights
Since the commencement of decentralisation under Law No 22/1999 and Law No 25/1999, Indonesia has experienced fiscal and educational reforms that impacted educational attainment nationally (Muttaqin et al, 2015)
Despite the mandate of Special Autonomy Funds on education, the realization of education spending share in West Papua is relatively low, which is less than 20 percent annually, while national average reaches 29-30 percent annually
fixed-effect model (FEM) analysis in the study suggests that education spending share and GRDP per capita needs to be increased to increase education attainment in West Papua
Summary
Since the commencement of decentralisation under Law No 22/1999 and Law No 25/1999, Indonesia has experienced fiscal and educational reforms that impacted educational attainment nationally (Muttaqin et al, 2015). These reforms are supposed to reconstruct provision of public goods in coping with disparities in accesses of education and low level of education attainment. Since West Papua has lower level of education attainment in Indonesia, Special Autonomy Law manage provision of education spending in increasing education attainment (Hakim et al, 2013). The reform is expected to promote fiscal decentralisation through Special Autonomy Law, reduces disparities, and increase education attainment
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