"It is the department itself which appoints these contractors who are now dumping textbooks," Democratic Alliance provincial education spokeswoman Desiree van der Walt said in a statement.

"It beggars belief how a person will wilfully dump textbooks meant for the learners in the province."

Police said more than 5 000 books were found dumped in Majeje, in the Phalaborwa region.

"The between 5 000 to 6 000 books range from grade zero to grade nine for various subjects," spokeswoman Lt-Col Ronel Otto said.

"Police, along with the education department, will launch investigations in order to determine where the books came from and where they were supposed to go."

She said some of the books were still in their boxes. All the books had been taken to a police station for safekeeping. No criminal case had been opened.

Provincial education spokesman Pat Kgomo said the department would meet the police later in the day to discuss the dumping.

"The department, and the MEC in particular, learned with shock about the dumping of books," he said.

"We are, however, confident that the police will solve the mystery."

Van der Walt said the incident was linked to other cases where books were dumped in Giyani, and shredded in Seshego.

"The DA has already laid criminal charges for both [of] these incidences," she said.

"The DA keenly awaits for the police to finalise their investigations into this matter... the culprits must be brought to book."

Some grades in Limpopo received textbooks seven months after the school year started, while others were still waiting. Earlier in the year, lobby group Section27 obtained a court order for textbooks to be delivered to Limpopo by June 15. In a meeting between Section27 and the department on June 21, a revised date of June 27 was set.

President Jacob Zuma received a preliminary report from a presidential task team that investigated the late delivery on July 30.

He said he was studying the report and urged the task team to conclude its work.

Zuma would comment on the report once the matter had been concluded.