Donald Trump signs executive order to shut down the Department of Education

The US President signed the order which will begin to dismantle the Department of Education.

President Trump signed the executive order which will begin dismantling the US Education Department.

The 77-year-old signed the order lsat night in front of a dozen students sitting at fake desks.

He made remarks on why he is ‘eliminating the federal Department of Education once and for all’ before walking past more than a dozen young children in the White House East Room.

Gesturing at the students, President Trump said 'good looking people here,’ before patting one of them on the shoulder.

Before signing, he asked students sitting at either side of his desk if he should do it, some of them nodding with a smile.

Speaking at a podium Trump stated: "We’re going to shut it down and shut it down as quickly as possible."

"We want to return our students to the states. Governors are so happy about this, they want education to come back to them," he added.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who is co-founder of World Wrestling Entertainment, will begin to start shrinking the $100billion department as per direction of the order.

Critical programmes which were overseen by the Department will now be taken over by federal departments, including Pell Grants federal student loan payments, Title I funding for low-income schools and money for students with disabilities.

President Trump assured these programmes will be 'preserved in full' and 'redistributed to various other agencies and departments that will take very good care of them'.

He thanked Ms McMahon for ‘presiding over something that’s so important’.