In order to develop deeper understandings of elite integration and pathways to power, scholars in the fields of sociology of education and professions have highlighted the need for research to examine the role of knowledge content in the educational backgrounds of governing elites. Complexity around governance due to multifaceted challenges posed by global health crises, demographic changes and climate change, has intensified this need. Through descriptive analyses of forty years of annual reporting data of Singapore’s public service commission, this article examines institutional stability and change in a national scholarship programme from a historical and sociological perspective. The findings illustrate modifications in the valorisation of knowledge acquired by future governing elites over time, with changes marked out by historical periods relating to nation-building, legitimising the elite, and attempts to ‘diversifying’ the elite. These findings provide insights on a specific case of state-sponsored mobility, while presenting implications for the role of travelling scholarships in facilitating the acquisition of knowledge, as local elites are schooled for governmental work. The text concludes with questions about how systems of sponsored mobility, built on transnational aspirations, might be reshaped due to current disruptions to international student mobility.