This was really great. Thank you. Just what I was looking for.
I made some slight changes to the validate event handler so it would be more generic..
if (!e.valid) {
var fieldName = Object.keys(e.sender._errors)[0];
var closest = $(e.sender.element[0]).find("[name=" + fieldName + "]").closest("div[role=tabpanel]");
var tabstrip = $(e.sender.element[0]).find("[data-role=tabstrip]");
tabstrip.find(">[role=tabpanel]").each(function(i){
if (closest.attr("id") !== this.id)
return;
tabstrip.data("kendoTabStrip").select(i);
});
}