Only ten percent of primary school teachers who took part in a survey would prefer not to teach religion while 
49pc say they teach religion willingly.
However, only 363 teachers out of almost a thousand asked took part in the mail survey organised by the INTO.
In addition to the 49pc of respondents who say they teach religion willingly, 20pc said they were not opposed to teaching religion and almost 8pc said they see it as simply one more subject they have to teach.
Just over 10pc said they would prefer to teach “a broad religious education programme but would prefer not to teach religious instruction in a particular faith”.
A little more than seven percent said they would prefer not to have to teach religion, with 2.2pc saying they would prefer to opt out of teaching religion and 0.28pc saying they have opted out of teaching religion.
The percentage of teachers who are happy to teach religion as distinct from tolerating having to teach it has dropped from over 60pc in 2002.
The overwhelming majority of those who responded to the survey, 79.9pc, thought that parents should have the right to send their children to a school with an ethos of their own choosing.
However only 28.4pc believed that schools should be denominational, with a further 27pc saying they thought that schools should be multi-denominational with faith formation outside of school hours and 21.8pc saying that schools should be multi-denominational with faith formation inside of school hours.
Only 10pc of respondents stated that schools should be non-denominational.