Most of the 1,685 high-school and college students between 12 and 20 said they did not like Romany people due to their "inability to adjust," according to the poll conducted by the NMS polling agency. Almost half feel the government should put Romany students in special schools, and one-third would expel them from the country.

Most of the students polled also said they don't like drug addicts, prisoners, homeless people and prostitutes. But they had more positive views of the disabled people, blacks, senior citizens and Western Europeans.

"The results are, and I'm not trying to cause a panic, alarming or disturbing to say the least,” Michaela Bernardová of NMS told the online Hospodářšké noviny newspaper. “They showed tendencies toward xenophobia, racism, and ageism. The young don't have enough information. They lack personal experience. They get most of their information from the media."

Paradoxically, more than three quarters of the respondents said they don't find Czech society to be discriminatory.

 According to Igor Blaževič, a spokesman for the People in Need Foundation, the poll was done in schools where his organization has conducted several educational campaigns against discrimination. The results in schools without such campaigns could be even worse, he said.

“Multicultural education is one of the important priorities on the minister‘s agenda," spokesman Ondřej Gabriel told The Prague Post, citing several ongoing projects the Education Ministry supports, including a program to integrate Romany communities and another to support Romany students in secondary schools. The two programs cost the government 25 million Kč ($1.36 million) annually.