Born and brought up in Pune, Heramb Kulkarni made his journey to Finland in the mid 2000s and has been there ever since.
Apart from holding leadership positions across MNCs like Nokia and Accenture in domains such as Technology, Innovation, and Software Development, Kulkarni has worked closely with schools, colleges, and universities across four continents to develop learning strategies for teachers and educators.
He also serves on the advisory board to governments of Bahrain, Nigeria, County of Powys in Wales, UK and Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Goa, and Maharashtra within India.
In an interview with the Free Press Journal, Kulkarni talked about the idea behind Creative Education Pattern, his NGO Council for Creative Education and NEP.
How did your journey from Pune to Finland come about? What made you choose Finland as the country to explore your ideas on Education?
I was born and brought up in Pune and did my graduation from the College of Engineering in the city. In 2005, I joined Nokia.
My specialization in the telecom industry led me to Finland. Withthehelp of initiatives within Nokia and the University of Tampere in Finland, I explored the world of education technology and thought how it can be combined with creative classroom learning.
In 2012, while working with another MNC, we found the Council for Creative Education (CCE). The research work for which we had started way back in 2007.
How has the Finnish Education Model impacted the Creative Education Pattern? How have you used it to influence the learning and teaching methods of other countries, especially in India?
Between 1970-2000, while the world focused on standardised tests, quality assessments, rote learning, etc, Finland focused on having no examinations, less homework, reducing stress among the students, and enjoyable learning.
It made me realise that even if you have great teachers, your restrictive curriculum can be a major problem. We have been working with the government of India, state governments of Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Goa in Zilla Parishad schools since 2016 to implement the Creative Education Pattern.
We also have private schools in Bengaluru and Pune which have some 1800 and 700 students respectively, who are following the Creative Education Pattern.
Since you are also a part of government advisories in Bahrain, Nigeria, Wales, etc, how different have been the challenges and requirements from country to country when it comes to reforms in education?
The requirements to bring reforms in education differs from country to country, city to city and school to school. For example, when we wentto Nigeria, we understood that it is a land of opportunities as it has a strong entrepreneurial mindset. So, we connected that one thread to school education.
We redefined some of the parts of the curriculum. The students had to go out of their classrooms and explore something, come back and reflect on that part. We also started advising ministries, state governments on how they will be able to innovate in the assessment field since many countries still rely on the pen and paper method, which is not a risk taking approach. Risk-taking would be when we go for openended, reflective, design-oriented questions.
And we saw that when we posed questions to the students based onthese three aspects, their quality of answers and the depth of their thinking were articulate. That's what we mean by connecting culture to classrooms.
Are you aiming to bring the education models to more countries in the next few years?
As of now, we are working with over 22 countries, having six offices internationally. By 2025, Council for Creative Education aims to have 25 different schools operational across 10 countries
