Human capital development: A construct for underprivileged students

BACKGROUND: Preparing underprivileged students to become human capital is a challenge. Issues relating to motivation and behavior are often cited as a roadblock for the quality of their learning and development. OBJECTIVE: The primary goal of this study is to develop a construct for future design and improvement to ensure successful human capital development for underprivileged students. The proposed construct is derived from the case study with Bangkok Metropolitan Administration since 2016. METHODS: Observation and interviews, through the use of Big Data represent the key tasks in the study's methodology. Comparing the findings with previous studies helped to verify the study's credibility. RESULTS: Improvements (e.g., recognition and behavior) in science experiment and education, through the focus on ecology and environment have been successful due to empathy, trust, psychological safety, participation, sense of belongingness, pride, and financial incentive (from the sales of product developed from science experiment). CONCLUSION: The construct for human capital development helps visualize the interrelationship among these factors. More importantly, recognizing the extreme value in student demographics when engaging with underprivileged students is essential for design and improvement. Finally, additional tasks are recommended to help generalize and extend this construct.