The educational reforms of the Programme of Equal Opportunity

This historical research inquiry examines the educational reforms of the Programme of Equal Opportunity legislated by the Liberal government of Premier Louis J. Robichaud in New Brunswick in the 1960s. The primary emphasis is upon the decade of the 1960s when the reform package was initiated. A cursory examination of events in New Brunswick from the eighteenth to the middle of the twentieth century provides the background to the problem. An analysis of the Byrne Report, the Robichaud Plan and the acceptance and opposition to them constitutes the core of the work. A study of the institutionalization of the reforms in the succeeding decades of the 1970s and 1980s under the regime of Conservative Premier, Richard Hatfield comprises the final chapter. Education was only one part of the extensive programme that altered much of the political, social and economic fabric of New Brunswick. Though education is central to this study, such issues as public finance, politics and linguistic duality are examined as integral parts of the educational reforms.