Chinese governments and departments are not meeting standards when it comes to transparency and publicizing information, with the National Railway Administration ranked last, said a report by a government think tank Monday.

In a blue book published by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) on Monday, the railway administration scored a zero out of 100 points in information transparency, The Beijing News reported.

The Ministry of Education ranked number one in the index, followed by the State Administration of Work Safety and the National Development and Reform Commission.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Justice and the State Bureau for Letters and Calls are ranked at the bottom. 

Lü Yanbin, head of the research group, told the Global Times the National Railway Administration did not have an official website until January 6 this year. 

"The administration had been performing its duties without any information disclosure for almost a year," said Lü.

Starting in March 2013, research fellows from CASS evaluated government transparency through the availability of government information, such as department reports and regulatory documents, on their official websites.

They also asked government departments to disclose information in written form, but found that many departments were reluctant to comply with the requests. A majority  cited State secrets as an excuse to withhold information, according to news portal cnr.cn.

"It is one of the major problems in information disclosure. The central government needs to further explain, at the State level, what information can be released and what should be kept secret," said Yun Jie, a political science scholar from CASS.

It is the fifth consecutive year that  CASS released reports on government transparency.

When accessing transparency of provincial governments, Tianjin Municipality is ranked No.1 out of 31 provincial regions, followed by Anhui Province and Jiangsu Province.

Liaoning Province is ranked the last and Beijing is ranked 9th on the list.

For provincial governments, the research fellows added reports of administrative approval and environmental protection assessment to their checklist.

Lü tried to invite top 10 departments to attend routine meetings to discuss government transparency. He said some departments didn't answer calls and some refused to attend. A staffer from Jiangsu Provincial government expressed their anger because he thought the institute had no power to write a letter to a provincial government.

There have been positive responses to the research as well, said Lü.

"We received feedback from lots of organizations. They read the report and improved their work accordingly," Lü said.