Between 2017 and 2018 the number of schools with a Catholic ethos fell by nine, from 2,785 to 2,776, while those with a multidenominational ethos rose by four, from 115 to 119.
The fastest-growing category of school by religious ethos in both percentage and absolute terms are multidenominational schools, which increased by 8 per cent with an additional 2,284 pupils. All 24 new mainstream primary schools opened in the past five years have been multidenominational in ethos.There is a similar pattern in secondary schools, where total enrolments stood at almost 363,000, at September 2018, an increase of 1.5 per cent.
Numbers of pupils in multidenominational schools increased by 3 per cent over the 12 months, far ahead of the rise in Catholic schools which saw their numbers increase by 0.4 per cent.The number of post-primary schools has been gradually rising for the past number of years, going from a low of 700 in 2013 to 722 in 2018.
Way less than the number of pubs closed...