Central pioneered nursing education in the Philippines through the establishment of Union Mission Hospital Training School for Nurses in 1906 which later became Central Philippine University College of Nursing, the first nursing school in the country. It is also the first institution in Southeast Asia to establish a student council, the CPU Republic, the first to pioneer the work-study program in the country, and the first to established an agricultural school outside of Luzon, the CPU College of Agriculture, Resources and Environmental Sciences.