Re: Would you encourage....?
I would let him/her go ahead and study Islam but I'd also make them study secular education.
A lot of Mullah's are completely ignorant about what goes on in the world because they lack a secular education, they end up presenting the wrong image of Islam and can't really answer questions because they're ill-prepared for todays world, they can't relate/intrepret some verses/narrations because they don't under stand their scientific meanings and end up intrepreting them wrong making Islam look daft, they can barely string a three word sentence together let alone debate and invite people to Islam.
A lot of them start their own Mosques as a business because they've not learnt any other way of earning a living.