According to the preliminary analysis, carried out by UNESCO’s International Bureau of Education (IBE, Geneva, Switzerland)**, religious education appears as a compulsory subject in the timetables of 73 of the countries surveyed on at least one occasion during the first nine years of schooling.
In 54 of these countries, the time to be devoted to religious instruction during the first six years of education amounts to an average of 388.4 hours or approximately 8.1 percent of total intended teaching time.