streams for many years at great cost was not worthwhile, given the doubts about even finding work at the end of it: [The reason for choosing vocational training over university studies is to] try to accelerate the process of helping my parents out. Instead of wasting five years in education, I can work and support my parents financially 232. As another youth summarized: ‘we want to learn a craft, because there aren’t a lot of job opportunities [...] If we receive our tawjihi, we won’t work. [People] have university degrees and stay at home!’233. Whilst parents regularly noted that ‘we all wish our children to be a doctor or engineer'234, they attributed their children leaving school or intermittently suspending studies for a term to overall household poverty and the necessity of doing so to support the household. Only a few parents noted that the disjuncture between higher educational attainment and available work deterred them from wanting their children to pursue academic studies: I was a teacher for 25 years. Of course, we went to work with the government at some point because the government needed teachers — of many nationalities — for one year. Since then, we struggled, with low salary. The children grew up and needed education. So for my children not to fall in this pit, I selected vocational education for them. Education is also very costly for ex-Gazans, double for exGazans235. My children work as plumber, chef, pastry chef. I would recommend people to do vocational instead of having high degrees and being frustrated by having to work as a carpenter 236. Pursuing higher education remains a key strategy to improve livelihoods and opportunities amongst Jerash ex-Gazans. Education protects against poverty for all Palestinian camp refugees but ex-Gazans in Jerash more often fail to translate this into better paid employment, not least because labour migration channels have dried up and they pursue degrees geared towards sectors in which they cannot work in Jordan. Thus, although hoping that higher education will pay off in the future and meanwhile enhancing Jerash camp residents’ status within the community, investment in higher education frequently fails to bring the hoped economic improvements. Consequently, as we will see below, Jerash ex-Gazans frequently need to pursue more basic ways of coping and securing their livelihoods. Debt and pooling of resources Neutralizing (through naturalization), circumventing (through ‘proxy’ ownership) and mitigating (through higher education) the impact of their status are oft-cited aspirations amongst ex-Gazans residents of Jerash; however, as strategies they remain precarious, frequently failing and even exacerbating their vulnerability. With meagre incomes generated from low-paid, short-term and irregular work and unable to engage in ‘compensatory work’ as their counterparts in Hitteen do, a common coping strategy for ex-Gazans in Jerash is to pool various incomes and resources within and between households, and rely Male, age 23, Hitteen camp, 14 February 2016. Focus group discussion with male youth, Manshiyyeh, 9 February 2016. 234 Focus group discussion with women, Jerash camp, 21 October 2015. 235 As non-citizens, ex-Gazans are — with a few exceptions — excluded from the competitive systems of admission to public universities available to Jordanian students. As a result, they must pay the higher fees charged to foreign students. See chapter 1. 236 Focus group discussion with men, Jerash camp, 21 October 2015. 232 233 ‘Just getting by’ Ex-Gazans in Jerash and other refugee camps in Jordan 121