Several Limpopo schools have been instructed by the department of basic education to be silent on the delivery of textbooks, a community leader said on Thursday.

Solanga Milambo visited eight schools in the province to find out if they had received textbooks, he told a briefing in Johannesburg by non-governmental organisation Section27.

"Some of the schools that I went to, mostly the principals and SGBs [school governing bodies], they were told that they mustn't... give us any information regarding the textbooks," he said.

"They were told this by the [Basic Education] Minister [Angie Motshekga]... They were told they are not going to receive any of the other textbooks and they must use what they got."

He said some schools had not received the textbooks they originally ordered.

Limpopo education department's former chief financial officer Solly Tshitangano said the department would never supply correct information about how many textbooks it had delivered.

"If they are saying that it is correct [in its figures of delivery], let them open all the schools or allow all the principals to talk. All the media houses must go and interview the principals so you can get the truth."

Tshitangano was dismissed from the department after he uncovered tender irregularities in the appointment of EduSolutions.

He said he also visited several schools to assess the department's claim that it had delivered 97% of the textbooks in the province.

"In one school I found a Grade Three class with 96 learners. They had received a box of only 10 books," he said.

"I don't know what they expect – 96 learners to share 10 books? It is common in most of the schools."

He said the department should have used all the money it had spent on paying lawyers to oppose court orders against it, to help deliver the books instead.

"We hope the department will come to its senses."

Section27, Tondani Masiphephetu, the mother of two pupils at a Limpopo school, and Hanyani Thomo Secondary School filed an application in the High Court in Pretoria on September 10 after the department failed to comply with an order to deliver textbooks to all schools in Limpopo.

The case was expected to be heard on September 27.

In May, the high court ordered the department to deliver the textbooks by June 15. This was later extended, by mutual agreement, to June 27.

However some schools had complained that they had still not received any books.

Masiphephetu told reporters that the department was compromising the future of Limpopo pupils by not delivering the books.

"It makes me feel so bad that after the court ruled in favour of us, as parents and activists, it seems that there are some [in the department]... who feel that they are above the law," she said.

Section27 executive director Mark Heywood said leaders in the department, especially Limpopo education MEC Dickson Masemola, needed to be fired for their role in the textbook crisis.

"The rot that started in the department started under his watch and mismanagement. We will see what comes out in investigations into his association with it [the crisis]," he said.

"Certainly, we have no hesitation in saying the national minister [Motshekga]... bears a very heavy responsibility for this crisis, and the president should weigh up whether she is capable of doing her job."