Religious education teachers are becoming more concerned about the bullying of Catholic students in school.

That’s according to a report published by the national anti-bullying research and resource centre.

Teachers also told the researchers that there had been “hostility” from non-religious students towards students who expressed faith, and that “strong beliefs by students can be ridiculed”.

However, 88 per cent of those surveyed did not raise religious-based bullying because the report was about bullying in general.

The findings were part of a study of religious education produced by researchers at Dublin City University, Dr Amalee Meehan and Derek Laffan.

In a survey of 214 religious education teachers, 64 per cent said that studying religion should be mandatory for students in both the junior and senior cycle. However, the remaining 36 per cent did not think it should be compulsory.