Town comes under fire for planning to segregate Romany first-graders

A Czech town has come under fire for planning to set up a special class for Romany first graders after the summer holidays. The town of Valašské Meziříčí says this is an educational experiment on the grounds that Roma children have a lot to catch up on when they start school, including Czech language skills. The minister for human rights and minorities, Michael Kocáb, says this is plain racial segregation and is absolutely unacceptable in the present-day world. Sociologists and the Czech Education Ministry have joined in the criticism.