Trump had said last week he would like to close the department of education using an executive order but acknowledged he would need buy-ins from congress and teachers’ unions to fulfill his campaign pledge to do so.

An immediate closure of the education department could disrupt tens of billions of dollars in aid to K-12 schools and tuition assistance for college students.

Trump has spent his first weeks in office pushing through massive changes to the US government, demanding federal employees come back to work in offices or quit, seeking cost and job cuts and trying to shut down agencies such as the US agency for international development.

The education department has been high on Trump’s list of targets.

“I’d like it to be closed immediately,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday. “The department of education’s a big con job.”

The president has previously said he had tasked Linda McMahon, his pick to be education secretary, to close the department he wants her to lead.

Trump proposed closing the education department in his first term from 2017-2021 but congress did not act. The agency employs 4,245 and spent US$251 billion in the most recent year.

Conservative thinktanks that have called for abolishing the education department have proposed that other agencies could handle its aid programmes and oversight duties.