The forgotten people: Despite having lost their homes and their land, and lacking a State of their own to support them, the Palestinian refugees have acquired a reputation as being among the best educated of all the peoples of the Middle East.
There are echoes of the Irish historical experience in the phenomenon of the Palestinians seeking to escape poverty and deprivation through education.
Salwa Salti, a Palestinian who works with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in the Syrian capital, Damascus, told The Irish Times how her parents always emphasised that education was "a reliable passport to the future".
UNRWA is the main provider of basic schooling to the refugees and has established the largest non-governmental education system in the world, with almost 700 schools and more than 16,000 mostly Palestinian teaching and support staff. The agency has three teacher training colleges in Jordan and the West Bank where about 1,000 students are taking four-year degree courses.
Refugee schools follow the curriculum established by the host government in the hope that pupils will be able to progress further in the education or employment system of that country.
The reality is that many will emigrate and support their families back home through "emigrants' remittances", a phrase well known to Irish people in previous times.
Access to third level is a major problem in Lebanon, because of the fees. Syria, by contrast, provides university education free to all refugees who are qualified to avail of it. There are also no barriers to employment for Palestinians in Syria whereas, in Lebanon, they are barred from more than 70 trades and professions.
Irishman David Doyle, from Enniscorthy, Co Wexford, is leading an initiative aimed at improving the employment prospects of Palestinians in Lebanon.
The former Army officer is head of a three-year EU-funded vocational education and training project which started last August.
The €4 million project aims to provide training to about 70,000 young Palestinians and a "training of trainers" course has been set up with an initial group of 25 people, who will train others in turn.
The fact that Palestinians are barred from so many jobs in Lebanon constitutes "a major blockage" but Doyle is trying to find ways around the problem.
"I can't particularly solve it, but I can contribute to their flexibility and mobility."
The courses are being organised on a modular basis so that a person who is qualified in one area but can't get a job can be retrained without undue difficulty in another, related field of work where opportunities do exist.
Doyle says a computer training course has generated "huge interest".
He acknowledges that, while Palestinians get a good education in the camp schools, the job-hunt is very difficult. "The statistics on it are absolutely dreadful," he says. "There could be as much as 60-70 per cent unemployment. Survival is not easy."
Training services are normally provided by non-governmental organisations, "because there is no government and there is no nation in the camps".
But he is astonished at the enthusiasm of the young Palestinian.
"They definitely want to learn, amazingly, when there are so few actual job prospects."
