DEPUTY Prime Minister Wayne Swan has slammed any sell-off of Queensland schools as a 'sick joke'.

The Courier-Mail revealed today a ministerial briefing showed 55 state schools had been earmarked for closure by the Department of Education, Training and Employment last year.

"How on earth do you create better schools by flogging them off? This must be some kind of sick joke," the federal Treasurer said.

"There has never been a starker example of the differences between Labor and the LNP - we're about better schools, they're about selling schools.

"This is yet another example of Campbell Newman going too far with his cuts to the bone.

"The time has come for Minister Langbroek to start acting like a real Minister and show some leadership in the interests of Queensland kids."

Earlier, Queensland Teachers' Union president Kevin Bates said a focus on amalgamating schools, which is also mentioned in the Ministerial brief, was understandable.

"We would acknowledge that there are locations around Queensland where there are a very large number of schools in a very small space," Mr Bates said.

"Places like the Lockyer Valley and around Warwick and Stanthorpe there are 10 and 15 schools within a 40 minute drive within a major centre, so there would be opportunities there for a more realistic approach to the way those schools operate.

"You would expect some attention to rationalising the number of schools.

"But it must be done in consultation with those communities."

Queensland Association of State School Principals president Hilary Backus said they had raised similar ideas in their paper Building Bright Schools.

"Certainly for school communities where two schools are really close together amalgamation is a definite possibility so you would rebrand the new school and combine two," she said.

The Building Bright Schools paper notes: "QASSP has also considered the sensitive issue of the possibility of consolidating the number of schools and has resolved that it will support a process that examines this issue and actively support any resulting decision to amalgamate schools where that is considered necessary.''

Treasurer Wayne Swan calls the plan "some kind of sick joke".

"While Prime Minister Julia Gillard wants to boost overall funding to Queensland schools to the tune of $3.8 billion, the Newman Government wants to auction off schools to the highest bidder," Mr Swan said.



"There has never been a starker example of the differences between Labor and the LNP – we’re about better schools, they’re about selling schools.



"This is yet another example of Campbell Newman going too far with his cuts to the bone.



"The time has come for Minister Langbroek to start acting like a real Minister and show some leadership in the interests of Queensland kids.

Earlier, Minister John-Paul Langbroek confirmed the education department is considering school closures in Queensland.

But he told ABC radio the number was yet to be decided as there were other factors that had to be taken into account in deciding whether a school faced closure

He said the State Government was looking at all schools across Queensland over the next couple of months.

“This is a briefing note we got from the department back in August last year, which was obtained under Right to Information,” he said.

“We are still coming to that final determination.

“We want to be able to create more opportunities for people to be able to go to schools that are well-attended and have got increasing numbers, as opposed to some areas that have as little as 40 per cent utilisation and low numbers of students in facilities that are crumbling," he said.

“We are looking at a range of different issues that are bigger than just the money we could save by closing those schools.”

Earlier, The Courier-Mail revealed fifty-five schools across Queensland have been earmarked for closure.

An "urgent" ministerial briefing note obtained by The Courier-Mail says closing the schools could save almost $17 million in running costs and take less than a year to achieve.

Dated August 8, 2012, the briefing proposed cuts of 14 schools in the Far North Queensland region; 10 in North Queensland; eight in North Coast and Darling Downs and South West; seven in Metropolitan; six in Central Queensland; and two in South East.

Government sell-offs are almost certain after the final report of the Peter Costello-led Commission of Audit into Queensland's finances is tabled in Parliament tomorrow by Treasurer Tim Nicholls.

The commission has already told the Government it needs to quickly cut state debt by more than $25 billion to help Queensland regain its AAA rating.

Tomorrow's 1000-page audit report has 155 recommendations, many of which are expected to support privatising government assets, out-sourcing work now done by departments, and better asset management.

The State Government announced less than two weeks ago it had sold $561.9 million of Brisbane CBD buildings.

Mr Nicholls has repeatedly said the state would not sell government-owned assets without a mandate from voters but has defended the sale of government buildings and land as asset planning.

"Asset planning under the previous Labor government was done on an ad hoc, piecemeal basis and there was an overemphasis on new projects," he said when he released the final report's executive summary in early March.

Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek said the Government wasn't selling off assets because the money saved would be spent on education.

Mr Langbroek said the LNP had inherited "a backlog of unviable schools" because the previous government wasn't prepared to make the hard decisions, but the list as presented by the department needed to be refined.

"They (students) shouldn't be studying in crumbling relics that are falling down," Mr Langbroek said. "We've got some (schools) that are very low utilisation (and) some that are over capacity."

He said not all 55 would shut but acknowledged a decision on final numbers was yet to be made.

Mr Langbroek said schools would only close after consultation but it would be a relatively short process.

Queensland Secondary Principals' Association president Norm Fuller said some schools would be "marginal in as far as being viable" and sometimes it would be better for students in smaller high schools to be in larger ones that had more subjects and opportunities.

Queensland Teachers' Union president Kevin Bates said he was concerned about any new policy restricting the requirement of the State Government to consult with communities.

-- reporting by Alison Sandy, Tanya Chilcott, Robert MacDonald

Originally published as State school sales 'a sick joke': Swan