Given below are two statements : One is labelled as Assertion (A) and the other is labelled as Reason (R).

Assertion (A): Education enables upward social economic mobility and is a key for escaping poverty. Over the past decade major progress was made towards increased access to education and enrolment at all levels particularly for girls.

Reason (R): The global pandemic has far reaching consequences that may jeopardize hard won gains made in improving school education.

In the light of the above statements, choose the most appropriate answer from the options given below:

 Assertion (A): Education enables upward social economic mobility and is a key for escaping poverty. Over the past decade major progress was made towards increased access to education and enrolment at all levels particularly for girls.

• Goal 4 of SDG:
  • The Sustainable developement agenda contains 17 goals including a new global education goal (SDG 4).
  • SDG 4 is to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all' and has seven targets and three means of implementation.
  • Sustainable development hinges on every child receiving a quality education. When children are offered the tools to develop to their full potential, they become productive adults ready to give back to their communities and break the cycle of poverty. Education enables upward socioeconomic mobility.
  • Significant progress was achieved during the last decade in increasing access to education and school enrolment rates at all levels, particularly for girls. 

Hence Assertion  is correct.

Reason (R): The global pandemic has far reaching consequences that may jeopardize hard won gains made in improving school education.

• Quoting the UNICEF report
  • In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the globe, a majority of countries announced the temporary closure of schools, impacting more than 91 per cent of students worldwide.
  • By April 2020, close to 1.6 billion children and youth were out of school. And nearly 369 million children who rely on school meals needed to look to other sources for daily nutrition.
  • Never before have so many children been out of school at the same time, disrupting learning and upending lives, especially the most vulnerable and marginalised.
  •  The global pandemic has far-reaching consequences that may jeopardize hard won gains made in improving global education.

Hence Reason  is correct

But Reason is not support the assertion.

Therefore we can say that Both (A) and (R) are correct