In the era of globalisation, provision of quality education is increasingly gaining importance across the world. Like elsewhere, it has already been realised in India that equal attention is needed simultaneously on access, equity and quality to achieve the goal of universalisation of elementary education. It has also been experienced that although the majority of children in India today have access to school education, all of them are not receiving quality education for various reasons, leading to poor learning level, repetition and gradual exclusion from school education. Large achievement gaps are found among different groups of children attending schools located in different regions and managed by government and private providers. Using the primary data collected from 88 schools of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, this paper attempts to critically examine the extent to which the quality of school affects access and participation of children particularly in rural areas. It also investigates problems of inadequate infrastructure and academic facilities: how these are affecting the quality of education; who are the children most affected by poor quality schools and therefore facing problems of locational disadvantage; and the influence of gender and social background of children on their access to quality education. (Contains 2 footnotes, 9 figures, and 34 tables.)