The number of immigrant children attending Italian schools has soared 609% in ten years and the majority of them are Muslims, a report from think tank Eurispes said on Friday.
In 2007, the report said, there were 1,253,703 Muslim students in the Italian school system, while the second largest foreign religious group was the Christian Orthodox one, with 1,129,630 students.
Among Italian students, the vast majority of whom are Catholics, the biggest religious minority are Protestants, 409,000, followed by Jehovah's Witnesses, 400,000.
Eurispes calculated that immigrants represented 5.8% of the Italian population in 2007 with their number jumping 16.8% over the previous year, the results of a major influx of people from eastern Europe.
The largest immigrant group was from Romania, which is now part of the European Union, and Eurospes said this explained the sharp increase in the number of Orthodox Christian students.
The increase in non-Catholic students, Eurispes observed, has also resulted in a decline in the number of students taking optional religion classes.
