Career Meaning-Making through State-Funded Education: Evidence from Singapore’s Policing Institution

ABSTRACT The scholarship schemes have increasingly become strategic instruments for human resource development in modern police organizations. This study examines how long-established scholarship policies function as mechanisms for leadership development and talent governance within the Singapore Police Force (SPF). Employing a qualitative dominant mixed methods approach, the research integrates descriptive quantitative mapping of official scholarship data with qualitative analysis of publicly available awardee testimonies. The findings reveal that SPF scholarship schemes are embedded within a coherent institutional architecture spanning pre-service and in-service stages, locally and overseas, and jointly governed by central and sectoral agencies. Beyond structural design, officers experience scholarship pathways as formative career processes that shape strategic capacity, leadership learning, professional identity, and service values through the interaction of education, rotational assignments, and early responsibility. The study demonstrates that the impact of scholarships depends less on study location than on policy design and career integration. By situating the SPF case within human resource development and public sector leadership frameworks, this research contributes to policing studies and offers comparative insights for police organizations seeking to strengthen leadership development through education scholarship, including in the Indonesian National Police (INP).