Sapientia Foundation Journal of Education, Sciences and Gender Studies (SFJESGS), Vol.4 No3 September, 2022; pg.

g. 277 – 284
ISSN: 2734-2522 (Print); ISSN: 2734-2514 (Online)

RELEVANCE OF THE SYSTEM THEORY TO THE EFFECTIVE AND EFFEICIENT

MANAGEMENT OF EDUCATION IN NIGERIA

ELUJEKWUTE, EDWIN CHUKWUAGUZIE (PhD)

Department of Educational Foundations, Faculty of Education
Benue State University, Makurdi, Benue State – Nigeria
E-mail: elujekwuteeddy@[Link] Tel: +2348037530328

UMAR, ISMAILA
Department of Vocational and Technical Education
Faculty of Education,
Taraba State University, Jalingo, Taraba State, Nigeria

DANBURAM, IBRAHIM UMARU

Department of Arts Education, Faculty of Education
Taraba State University, Jalingo, Taraba State -Nigeria

&
REV. UWALAKA, MATTHEW C. (PhD)
Department of Educational Foundations, Faculty of Education
Benue State University, Makurdi, Benue State -Nigeria

ABSTRACT
This paper examined the relevance of the system theory to the effective management of
education in Nigeria. The systems theory was postulated to indoctrinate managers on
the importance of holistically managing organizations. It was premised on the
assumption that, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The theory opened the
eyes of managers of educational organizations to carry everybody and every segment
of the organizations along for effective performance of organizational goals and
individual needs. This paper also treated the tenets of the theory concepts and its
applicability in the educational system. It also highlighted its relevance to effective and
efficient management to education in Nigeria and finally the criticisms of the system
theory to management of education in Nigeria.

Keywords: Relevance, System Theory, Effective Management, Education, Nigeria.

Introduction
In the 1920s a biologist named Ludwig Bertalanffy presented his systems theory to a
philosophy seminar at the University of Chicago. Chapman (2005) notes that Ludwig
Bertalanffy was a biologist who began the systems theory study in life sciences which
eventually developed into the modern field of ecology. Ecology as we know it now is the
study of the systems of nature. Bertalanffy believed that nothing could be understood by
isolating merely one part of what plays a significant role in system. The history of systems
theories includes contributions from such similar thinkers as Alfred North Ehitehead, Ludwig
von Bertalanffy, Anatol Raspopport, Kenneth Boulding, Paul A. Weiss, Ralph Gerard, Kurt
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Lewin, Roy R. Grinker, Willian Gray, Nicolas Rizzo, Karl Menninger, and Silvano Arieti
among others. This paper traces the principles of the systems theory, its concepts, its relevance
to effective management of education in Nigeria and criticisms against it. As a response to the
increasing fragmentation and duplication of scientific and technological research and decision
making in the first half of the 20th century, Ludwig von Bertalanffy advanced what he called
Allgemeine Systemlehre (theory of systems or, more popularity, general system theory (GST).
Scholars began to view the administration and management of organization and educational
institutions as a system. The basic idea behind the system theory is that, to understand a
phenomenon, we must recognize that the whole is greater than the sum of all its parts.
According to Burke (2009) the system theory challenges the reductionist approach where the
individual part is the level of analysis and emphasized that it is the whole, the combination
and inter-relationships of part that will generally provide insight into the functioning of the
parts and the whole. Burke further maintains that proposed by systems theory is to model
complex entities created by the multiple interaction of components by abstracting from certain
details of structure and component, and concentrating on the dynamics that define the
characteristic functions, properties, and relationships that are internal or external to the
system.

According to Guberman (2004:89), the assumptions of the systems theory were as follows:
1. There is a general tendency toward integration in the various aspects or parts of an organization
2. Such integration seems to be centered in a general pattern
3. Such pattern may be an important means for aiming at exact interaction and interdependence
within the organization
4. Developing unifying principles running vertically through the system brings us nearer the
goals of the individuals and unity of organization
5. This can lead to a much-needed integration in effective management of organization

Bertalanffy’s idea behind systems theory is that nothing can be explained by isolating a
component of system. The theory attempted to view the school as a unified, purposeful
organization, or as a system composed of inter-related parts. Vancouver (2005) notes that the
system theory suggested that instead of dealing separately with the various parts, educational
administrators/managers should look at the educational system as a whole. This was based
on the insinuation that, the activity of any part of the system has a direct bearing on every
other part of the educational system. In order to properly explain and gain a better
understanding of the system theory and its holistic properties had to be analyzed to find the
root of problem.

Concept of System Theory

System theory was propounded by a biologist Ludwig Von Bertanlanffy in 1920. Bertanlanffy
asserts that a system is an interrelated and interdependent set of elements functioning as a
whole. The theory suggests the functionalist approach as the best way of examining the role
of a subsystem in a larger system. Bertanlanffy posits that it was not enough to understand
the parts, that it was also important to understand the relationship among the parts.
Bertanlanffs’ idea behind system theory is that nothing can be explained by isolating a
component of system. The theory attempted to view the school as unified purposeful
organisation or as a system composed of interrelated parts. This was based on the insinuation
that the activity of any part of the system has a direct bearing on every other parts of the
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educational system. A system theory has open system which relatively highly permeable
boundaries while the closed system has relatively rigid impermeable boundaries thus sub-
system is a system that exist within a large system. Every system, supra system or subsystem
has an environment. System theory also rests on beliefs that in all system like the society, the
school, education, the classroom, has different parts performing different functions but in a
way that each part interacts and is interdependent with the other parts and with the system
(environment) around it. Therefore, what affect one part; affect the other parts in the system
and its environments. Bertanlanffy further points out that the history of the concept can be
traced to Aristotle, who suggested that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. A system
is an entity composed of a number of parts, the relationship of their parts and attributes of
both the parts and the relationship. Thus, the university can be termed a system because of
the number of its parts, the relationship of these parts and the interwoven nature of their
function. For instance, in the university, there are Catering, Academic, Registry and Works
Department; whatever happens to one sub-system affects the whole system. A problem
arising from the university system may be approached by first examining the relevant sub-
system of the university system. System theory thus helps administrators to be very alert
bearing in mind that disruption of a sub-system can damage the entire system. The system
theory holds that an educational organisation is a social system made up of integrated parts;
a system is a unit with series of interacted and interdependent parts, such that the interplay
of any part affects the whole. A system is therefore a structure with interdependent parts. It
refers to the integration of different components and relationships between them and their
attributes, such that they form functionally related whole. The hierarchical and lateral
structure in a system and their associated interactions and transformation are geared towards
achieving the goal and purpose.

In its broadest conception, a “system” may be described as a complex of interacting

components together with the relationships among them that permit the identification of a
boundary-maintaining entity or process. In the broadest conception, the term connotes a
complex of interacting components together with the relationships among them that permit
the identification of a boundary-maintaining entity or process. A system can be defined as an
entity, which according to Mele and Polese (2010) is a coherent whole such that a boundary is
perceived around it in order to distinguish internal and external elements and to identify
input and output relating to and emerging from the entity. A systems theory is hence a
theoretical perspective that analyzes a phenomenon seen as a whole and not as simply the
sum of elementary parts. The focus is on the interactions and on the relationships between
parts in order to understand an entity’s organization, functioning and outcomes. This
perspective implies a dialogue between holism and reductionism.

Components: Components refer to the parts-the smallest meaningful units that interact with
each other to fulfill the purposes of the system. In a educational institutions teachers and other
people and things that interact to carry out the functions of teaching and learning can be
regarded as the components of the system.

Boundary: Boundary as a more or less arbitrary demarcation of units that are included within
and that are excluded from the main system. It is the boundary that separates the system from
its environment and filters the inputs and output from the system. Boundaries are often poorly
drawn in the educational system since the school is an open system.
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Environment: Environment as anything is it physical and social factor that is external to the
boundaries of the system and has potential to affect all or part of the system. Every system or
supra-system or sub-system has an environment. External constituencies for a school
building, for example, include unions and the legislature. They can at any given time in the
life of a school have influence on school activities or programmes.

Inputs: Inputs are those messages or stimuli that trigger off the internal components of a
system to perform those activities for which the system was designed and instituted. Such
inputs may take the form of people, materials, money and or information. Inputs are elements
that enter the system across its boundary. They cause or enable the components interact in
fulfilling the system’s purposes.

Outputs: These are all that the system produces, either by design or by accident. Outputs can
be intentional or unintentional and they entail altering the input. A school for example
receives a student as an input, processes him/her over the years through lectures, assignments
and counselling, and come out as an output in the form of a more learned, affective, cultured,
educated and disciplined person (intended output) ready to enter the real world of
employment; or he or she graduate as a rebel, a person who resists established authority and
control (unintended output)

Open system: This is a system that has relatively highly permeable boundaries. Consequently,
open systems receive inputs and provide outputs. The school for example exchange
considerable amount of information across its boundaries with the external environment.

Close system: This is a system that has relatively rigid, impermeable boundaries. Lalande and
Bammeister (2015) states that such systems receive very few inputs. There is little exchange of
energy and information with the environment. No social system is completely closed; thus it
is more accurate to speak of social systems being relatively closed or open.

Sub-system: A sub-system is a system that exists within a larger system. All systems except
the very smallest are composed of subsystems, if the school is taken as a system, then
administrative and support service units or departments and classes can be conveniently
regarded as the sub-systems.

Supra-system: This is a larger system of which a particular system is a part. A school can be
considered as a system, exiting within a larger system, a school district or an educational zone.
In this case, the school is a subsystem with respect to the district or educational zone which is
the supra-system.

Equilibrium: This is the tendency of a system to achieve a state of balance or stability among
the many forces or factors operating upon the system or within it. Nykpamp (2016) noted that,
there is stationary equilibrium and dynamic equilibrium. A stationary equilibrium exists
when there is a fixed point or level of balance to which the system returns after a disturbance.
A dynamic equilibrium also called a steady state occurs when the equilibrium shifts to a new
position of balance after a disturbance.

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Disequilibrium: This is a state of instability or imbalance in which some components of the

system overload others.

Entropy: This is the tendency of organization overtime to move towards randomness, chaos,
disorder, lack of patterning, disorganization or death; that is, the tendency towards decrease
in order and an increase in disorder within an organization.

Negatropy: This is the tendency of an organization to combat death or disorganization. It is

also called negative entropy.

Equifinality: This is a property of a system which permits different results from similar inputs
and similar results from alternate inputs.

Feedback: This is the process which the organization learns. Feedback is the input from the
environment to the system, telling it how it is doing as a result of its output to the
environment. It is the process which entails drawing some of the system’s output back into
the system as information inputs, so that possible discrepancies between intended output and
actual outputs can be sensed.

Synergy: This is the belief that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, in the
management education, synergy encourages the interaction of different departments to
become effective and more production than if they were to act in isolation.

Flow: This term pertains to the entry and exit of inputs and outputs respectively in a system.
In the educational system, the inputs entering the school may not correspond with the outputs
leaving the system in terms of quality and or quantity. This enables the system to fulfill its
purposes of establishment.

Relevance of Systems Theory to the Effective and Efficient Management of Education in

Nigeria
No educational manager can carry out management functions in isolation. He or she must
make adequate use of all the human and material components of the school system to translate
the aims of the curriculum into reality. Consequent upon this, the systems theory has
relevance to the educational system in the following ways:

Systems theory is approached when one wants to study in a complex, open ended setting,
where there are many unpredictable variables at work. According to Elujekwute (2019) the
school is an example of an open system with inputs filtering through its boundaries. This
theory is important to the effective management of education in the sense that, the school
principal of a secondary school will understand that members of the immediate community
have inputs into the management of the educational institution. In such a situation, he should
be willing to accept suggestions from parents that are to assist in the management of the
secondary schools. Systems theory is useful in providing a framework in which one study
complex variables influencing one another. Checkland (2005) reports that, there are a lot of
variables that constitutes a school system. The principal of a secondary school can utilize this
knowledge and be able to identify extraneous variables filtering into the school system which
could pose problems for the effective management of such schools. For example, the principal
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who understand the influence of partisan politics on the efficiency of school management can
advice his subordinates to shun partisan politics as it is bound to generate bad blood among
the staff and negate the accomplishment of educational goals and objectives. Systems theory
has the ability to show the complex web of relationships in operation as a system moves
toward its goals. Checkland and Poulter (2006) notes that, the educational aims and objectives
can be achieved, when all facets of the economy or policy formulation and implementation or
agencies work in harmony and in this regard, both the Ministry of Education and the school
administrators/managers can harmoniously work together towards translating the policy
statements into reality when they realize that, they are all parts of a common system which is
education. Systems theory is not limited historically as it can be used to help make meaningful
predictions about what can be reasonably expected in the future. Amold and Wade (2015)
remarks that, projections are needed to be made in education for proper planning and also,
planning for enrolment without paying attention to the availability of other educational
facilities can only boil down to failure. In the university system for example, utilizing the
knowledge from the systems theory, the university management can make projections for
enrollment alongside the provision of other educational facilities such as the functional
libraries, parking lots, laboratories instructional materials, lecture halls, academic staff and
none-academic staff among others. A holistic approach to educational planning can result to
effective utilization of scarce or available resources for effective teaching/learning and
management of the university system.

Educational institutions operate in diverse and complex environment, with intensive

interactions and multilateral impacts of external environmental factors, and to cope with
them, educational administrators/managers are required to be able to make informed
decisions and to keep the educational institutions focused to purpose. Adams and Hester
(2013) notes that the educational managers utilizing the systems theory can scout for public
acceptance in the host community knowing well that the external environment of a school has
great influence on activities within the around the school. The systems approach attempts to
view the world in terms of irreducibly integrated systems. It focuses attention on the whole,
as well as on the complex interrelationships among its constituent parts. This way of seeing is
not an alternative, but a complement, to the specialized way. Guberman (2004) maintains that
the system theory is more all-embracing and comprehensive, incorporating specialized
perspective, as one aspect of a general conception. It is based on individual, competition,
training for a specific profession, and indoctrination into a specific culture of harmony within
and around the school premises for meaningful teaching and effective management of
education.

System theory allows for this synergy to be generated because of the communication channels
that are open in a properly functioning system. Huseh, Smale and Devaney (2004) maintains
that synergy is the combined effect of a system working together where the combined result
is greater or more powerful than that of the individual components. When feedback channels
are sued to effectively measure organisation progress and then the institutions adapts to those
suggested changes, homeostasis is achieved in that organization. By utilizing systems theory
in organizational communication, the school principal can adequately communicate
directives to all segments of the school and this will facilitate timely accomplishment of
educational aims and objectives. Systems theory has also been used in application to
organizational communication. Organizations are systems that have many different members
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and relationships within those members. All of the relationships within the subsystems of an
organization are interdependent on each other and can directly affect the operation of the
system. When an organizational system is functioning properly synergy is present. Systems
theory opens up the though process about the feedback channels and adaptation process. The
educational system is in dear need of feedback; students’ need feedback about their
performance in school evaluation while teachers need feedback concerning their performance
of educational obligations. The use of systems theory can be useful in providing this desired
feedback to all the sectors of the schools system, so as to facilitate an overall development of
the entire system.

System theory provides tools that enable individuals and society to analyze and take action
upon a host of complex issues we now face. Many of these issues are addressed in science,
technology, and society curricula. These issues include: resource depletions, environmental
management, appropriate technology, population control, energy use, and building
ecologically sustainable economics. The complexity and dynamics of these sorts of issues
quickly overwhelm traditional school science curricula. System theory provides a framework
in which these complex issues can be powerfully engaged and addressed.

Change is a central aspect of our experience of the world. System theory is aimed at providing
a framework for engaging the dynamics of our world. Understanding change means being
able to comprehend system transformation and evolution. The ability to conserve number,
form, shape, pattern, mass, volume, and other specific properties are crucial to being able to
come to grips with change. Change at the center of understanding the dynamics of systems.
With this knowledge, educational administrators can adequately prepare alternatives that
will be fallen back on it times of changes like changes in the financial fortunes of a school.

The ability to understand the world on more than one level is important for engaging
complexity. We believe large and complex systems need to be analyzed at both the individual
(micro) and collective (macro) levels. The ability to relate individual and aggregate behavior
is crucial for understanding complexity. Insight requires shifting back and forth from the
micro-level to the macro-level and back again. Neither level can be reduced to or fully
explained without the other. System thinking articulates the tension between these levels and
the need to engage both levels in constructing understanding. Utilizing this principles,
managers of the educational system can put in places polices that will diffuse tension and
friction among the components of the university system for effective management of
education in Nigeria.

Criticisms of the Systems Theory

Although the system theory is in tandem with demands of effective management of
organizations and precisely the educational institutions, system theory was criticized for the
following reasons.

i. Some people reject the systems theory because it is too mechanistic in its view of
human beings. Such critics view the theory as dehumanizing when applied to social
phenomena in that it consider human groups to be in some ways similar to machines.

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ii. The theory has been rejected on the ground that it views social phenomena as
equivalent to natural phenomena. Meadow (2009) faulted the theory by writing that,
it treated social systems as a conformity or annex of some natural laws of biology,
geology and planetary. Meadow further argues that, social groups and psychological
beings are intrinsically different from natural entities in that they are social
constructions and can be change by the will and intent of participants. For example,
teachers in a school system for no good excuse may indulge in deviant behaviors just
to distinguish themselves and destabilize the school’s equilibrium.

iii. There is yet to be convincing empirical research on social phenomena to test the
applicability of the system theory directly.

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