Trump orders plan to dismantle US Education Department while keeping some functions

The White House said the department will not close completely right now.

Donald Trump (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

Donald Trump has signed an executive order calling for the dismantling of the US Education Department, advancing a campaign promise to take apart an agency that has been a long-time target of conservatives.

The president has criticised the department as wasteful and polluted by liberal ideology, but completing its dismantling is most likely impossible without an act of Congress, which created the department in 1979.