Important characteristics of a system are given below:
(1) Every system is a part of a larger system called supra-system. For example, a classroom is a system which a part of the institution (classroom’s supra-system) which is a part of the larger educational system and so forth.
(2) Every system has a subsystem. These subsystems are interdependent and inter-related. For example, people as a subsystem, technology as a subsystem.
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(3) It absorbs human members from the external environment thus transforming outsiders into members and vice-versa.
(4) Members of an institution possess multiple membership. For example, a student is a member of his school/college, his family, his peer-group, a club, etc. This multiple membership influences the outcomes of education.
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(5) There is a resource exchange between an institution and its external environment. Inputs are received from the external environment, utilized to assist the processes thus facilitating the production function and the outputs are then supplied to the larger society.
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(6) External social, cultural, economic and political environments of an institution are dynamic in nature.
(7) There is a mutual and reciprocal influence on the part of both the members of the institution and the larger society (external environment).
(8) The whole system is greater than its parts.
(9) A system operates in accordance with a specific plan aimed at achieving specific objectives.
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(10) Every system has a boundary.
(11) A system describes inputs used in a school/college and the processes within it so as to rationally and scientifically identify and analyze essential conditions for facilitating student, societal and research outcomes.
According to Parsons, a social system consists of a plurality of individual actors interacting with each other in a situation which has at least a physical or environmental aspect, actors who are motivated in terms of a tendency to the ‘optimization of gratification’ and whose relation to their situations, including each other, is defined and mediated in terms of a system of culturally structured and shared symbols.