These days, as the queues of Audi and Mercedes cars at drop-off time attest, it is a very different crowd who send their children to boarding kindergartens.
Numbers peaked in the 1990s, when sending a young child to such schools was a fashionable status symbol.
But recently the system has become less popular. Some boarding kindergartens, both private and state-run, are closing. Others are switching from boarding classes to day care.
The CWI kindergarten in Shanghai used to be exclusively boarding, but now only three out of 22 classes for young children are residential.
"Chinese parents are now starting to realise that it's important to spend more time with their kids when they are very young, because they are learning and it's a very important stage of growth," says Xu Jing.
"We also advise parents that if they have the time and ability to be with their children, day care is a better option."
Psychologist Han Mei Ling is a vocal critic of boarding kindergartens, having treated a number of adults and teenagers scarred by the experience.
"They feel abandoned and irrelevant. They struggle to find their place in life, and they don't know how to behave in their own family," she says.
"It achieves independence only in parents' minds - it is brutal."
Han believes a culture where family pride depends overwhelmingly on a child's success or failure is the reason some parents still send their children to kindergartens.
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