TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Several of Taiwan’s top universities have failed to attract a single new student to more than 100 Masters and Ph.D. degree programs, the Ministry of Education said Friday (Dec. 27).

The 2019 registration data mentioned the country’s most prestigious institutions of higher education, including National Taiwan University (NTU), National Chengchi University, National Tsing Hua University, and National Taiwan Normal University, CNA reported.

A total of 132 departments or institutes at the colleges had registered no new Taiwanese students for their Masters degree or Ph.D. programs in 2019. As the statistics involved Taiwanese citizens, there is a possibility that foreign students took part in some of the programs.

While the figures looked bad at first sight, the ministry pointed out that the number of Masters and Ph.D. programs exceed 4,000 nationwide, so the 132 that lacked new students only amounted to a minority.

Officials also said that national universities were quite stringent about requirements for enrolment in the programs, while in other cases, schools had decided to turn down applicants and suspend the programs due to lack of interest in order to reform them, CNA reported.