The headline to the story in The Irish Times yesterday read, ‘Only 49pc teach religion willingly in schools’. What did this headline invite us to believe? It invited us to believe that the rest do so unwillingly. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The INTO survey on which the report is based in fact found that only 10pc of respondents don’t want to teach religion. This was comprised of just over seven percent who said they would prefer not to have to teach religion, 2.2pc who said they would prefer to opt out of teaching religion and a tiny 0.28pc who said they have opted out of teaching religion.

In between those who are teaching religion ‘willingly’ and those who don’t want to teach it at all is another 20pc who say they are ‘not opposed to teaching religion’ and 7.8pc who see it as part of their job, like any other subject.

They might be described as not particularly willing, but not unwilling either.

The results of the survey aren’t entirely comforting of course. When a similar survey was conducted in 2002, over 60pc of respondents said they teach religion willingly.

But it is still a far-cry from the impression given by The Irish Times story namely that 51pc teach religion unwillingly when the true number falling into this camp is 10pc.

One caveat should also be added. Only 363 teachers took part in the postal survey out of around a thousand asked. Were they the ones with the strongest feelings on the matter?

All this said, there is obviously no room for complacency. Denominational schools need to step up their efforts to persuade their teachers of the value of teaching denominational-specific religion.