Nobel Prize laureate Professor Abraham Herschko and four former education ministers called on Education Minister Yuli Tamir on Monday to rescind her plan to cut the budget teachers' training colleges by NIS 22 million.

In a signed petition to Tamir, the five wrote that the cuts "have already caused the lack of an appropriate study framework for students who come to learn in the colleges, crumbling infrastructure, [and] reduced hours of instruction and teaching experience."

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"The cuts also caused the closure of departments, overcrowding in classrooms, the inability to attract good professors, and the elimination of possibilities to develop new programs."

"Today Israeli society is especially in need of good, quality teachers and a strong public education system," they continued. We need good teachers in the center of the country, in order to prevent the flow of upper and middle class students to the private school system, and we need excellent teachers in the periphery and the Arab sector, in order to prevent the widening of social gaps."

The petition's signatories include former education ministers Yitzhak Navon, Shulamit Aloni, Yossi Sarid, and MK Yitzhak Levy, as well as Rabbi Yoel Ben Nun, and Israel Prize laureates Shlomo Giora Shoham, Professor Haim Adler and Professor Gabi Solomon, as well as several professors of education.