I got my first exposure in computing in part because my dad agreed to teach computers for Folkeuniversitetet/Friundervisningen in the early 80's, but he needed to borrow one to learn to use it first...
In Norway it sprung out of students in the 1860's who wanted to make education more broadly available (Henrik Ibsen was one of the founding students, as was Bjørnstjerne Bjørson, perhaps less known outside Norway but the first Norwegian Nobel laureate in literature)
That particular institute got started in the late 1800s to educate farmers with an ideology similar to the Swedish system of the article, but by the 1990s it had mostly language courses. (Didn't get into university? Come study Spanish for a gap year, we'll make a trip to Spain at the end.) Currently in addition to the math programme they seem to teach several subjects with a kind of unofficial arrangement with universities. (Didn't make it to law school/psychology/teacher school? Come study exactly that for a year to improve your chances in the next admissions round, with some credit probably accepted toward your eventual university degree.)