With the announcement of Budget 2002, some quarters may feel that civil servants are very well rewarded whereas others are left hanging (See Rozita's letter titled 'Siapa bela pekerja swasta?' on Oct 20).

Our civil servants' pay scale is dwarfed by private sector wages to the extent that people are reluctant to take up civil jobs. Take the teaching profession, for example; newly-trained teachers make about RM800 a month. Compare that with someone in the private sector - a cell phone sales personnel can even make more.

With this kind of disparity, society tends to look down on civil servants. A generation ago, teaching used to be a noble profession, respected by society. And people actually worked hard to become a teacher. Today, I am sure we are all aware of the situation. Ask a student if he or she wants to work with the government, and chances are no, if there is a choice.

So, instead of having talented and hard-working people willingly join the civil service, we are left with people who are less motivated. And we end up with complaints about police professionalism, quality of teaching and poor civil service.

I believe it is high time we tip the scale a little bit and get some interest back into civil jobs. True, life is hard right now for the non-civil servants but then, the 10 percent wage increase is still far from the earnings that private sector workers enjoy.

By the way, in case I am misunderstood in anyway, let me clarify that I did not mean to denigrate any of the jobs mentioned above - they were just simple examples to illustrate my point.