Swedish Prime Minister condemns gender segregated Muslim school bus as 'despicable'

Vice principal says it was a 'mistake'

'This is not something that has been known or sanctioned by school management,' the school's vice principal said (Getty)

A Muslim school has been accused by the Swedish Prime Minister of being "despicable" for reportedly segregating children by their gender on a school bus.

Swedish broadcaster TV4 filmed secret footage of the privately run Al-Azhar Primary School in Stockholm in which boys were seen entering a vehicle from the front and girls from the back.

“I think this is despicable. This doesn't belong in Sweden,” Prime Minister Stefan Löfven told reporters.

“We take the bus together here, regardless if you're a girl or a boy, woman or a man.”

Yet the school's vice principal Roger Lindquist told the TT news agency the incident "was a mistake".

"This is not something that has been known or sanctioned by school management. Both the principal and I note, after seeing the video, that it has happened, but it is of course nothing we support."

The school, which caters for six to 10-year-olds, was criticised in 2016 after it was reported teachers had agreed to gender-segregated sports lessons.

The incident provoked outrage, with the country's education minister moving to ban dividing boys and girls into separate classes.