More than half the children being educated in Northern Ireland's schools are Catholic, newly released figures show.
Catholic pupils now account for 51 percent of the school population, while Protestants make up 37 percent. The other 12 percent are pupils of other Christian denominations, non-Christian, of no religion or whose religion has not been disclosed.
The numbers were revealed after Jim Allister, leader of Traditional Unionist voice, publicly voiced complaints that Northern Ireland's universities were failing to attract enough Protestant students, who now lag behind Catholics in terms of numbers in third level education.
But the school statistics would appear to show that it is less a matter of attracting than it is a natural form of attrition brought about by the North's changing demographics.
