The information implied here are primarily religious sciences and the ibadah is not fard (obligatory) ibadah but nafila (optional) ibadah. Fard ibadahs cannot be skipped in order to get educated; it has great responsibility. That hadith can be explained as follows; Learning religious sciences is favorable than ibadah such as nafila salat (prayer), nafila sawm (fasting) and dhikr (remembrance).   
Some hadiths which illuminate that issue can be presented as follows:
-There are many hadiths about the virtues of knowledge and scholars. A few of them are presented below:
“A scholar is seventy degrees superior to a worshipper. The gap between every degree is as long as the distance between the heaven and the earth.” (Majmau Az-Zawaid; 1/122)
“In the presence of Allah, being occupied with knowledge all the time is superior to having jihad for Allah’s cause.” (Kanzu’l-Ummal, h.no: 20240)
“The most virtuous deed is getting the knowledge of Allah/ the science teaching His Divine essence, attributes and names. Certainly, both few and many deeds with knowledge benefit you. However, neither few, nor many deeds with ignorance benefit you.” (Kanzu’l-Ummal, h.no: 28731)       
 -The fact that knowledge is superior to worship is so clear that there is no need to explain it, because;
Knowledge can be without worship, but no worship can be without knowledge. Getting knowledge is also worship itself.
As it is mentioned in the hadith “If someone blazes a good trail, an equal amount of rewards that the persons following that trail gained are written in the register of the actions of the person that has blazed that trail.”(Muslim, Zakat 69. Also refer to Nasai, Zakat 64), it is not difficult to understand how being occupied with knowledge one hour is superior to worshipping for years when we give thought to the reward, which thousands or millions of people, who convert into belief, pay heed to halals (permissible) and harams (forbidden), have high ethics and worship favorably because of the knowledge of a person who explains a rule of the religion, cause that scholar in question to win.