Parents should be able to choose which schools their children go to, the Northern Ireland Education Minister, Sinn Féin’s John O’Dowd, has said.

He was responding to a report on the website, The Detail, which showed that half of Northern Ireland’s schoolchildren are being taught in schools where 95pc or more of the pupils are of the same religion.

Teaching children in different faith schools has often been blamed as one source of the conflict in the North.

However the figures cited in the report also showed a marked drop in the number of schools educating almost exclusively pupils of just one religion.

Mr O’Dowd, in an interview with the same website said that he had no power, as education minister, to tell parents where to send their children.

He said: “It has to be remembered parents and pupils choose which school they would prefer to attend, I have no power to direct anyone as to which school they should attend.

“It is important that in an open, modern society parents have the right to express a preference for schools that reflect a religious, or integrated, ethos. Indeed it would not be appropriate for me to attempt to force parents to choose one type of school over another.”

The figures, obtained under a Freedom of Information request, showed that 493 schools in the 2011/12 year educated almost exclusively pupils of just one religion (95pc or more) – compared to 827 schools in 1997/98.

Integrated school pupil numbers have increased from 8,154 to 21,170, according to the report.

In the last school year, 51pc of schoolchildren were Catholic, 37pc Protestant and 12pc ‘other’ which includes other Christian, non-Christian and no religion/religion unknown.