This definitely used to be true, but I don't think it survived colonialism. Nowadays as kids are growing up, there are pretty much two paths: secular (in a manner of speaking) Western style schools, or traditional madrassas (not dissimilar to pre-colonial schools in the region). At least in my middle class socio-economic circles, people who undertook exculsively religious study (as opposed to studying it on the side with western education) were looked at with derision.