With more than ten million children out of school, Nigeria is the country furthest away from universal
primary education. Low access to school is concentrated in the north of the country where a tradition of
religious education has been seen as both a constraint and an opportunity. This paper uses recent survey
data to explain household decisions related to secular and religious education. It demonstrates a shift in
attitudes with unobserved household characteristics that favor religious education attendance being
negatively correlated with secular school attendance after controlling for a rich set of background variables.
The paper also provides quantitative evidence to support the argument that the poor quality of secular
education acts as a disincentive to secular school attendance. This finding cast doubts at policy attempts to
increase secular school enrolment through the integration of religious and secular school curricula.