What is the best way to combine sentences no. (9) and (10)?

Directions for the question:
The following passage is an early draft of an essay. Some parts of the passage need to be rewritten. Read the passage and select the best answer for the question that follows. Keep in mind that some questions are about particular sentences or parts of sentences and ask you to improve sentence structure or word choice. Other questions ask to consider organization and development. In choosing the answer, follow the requirements of standard written English.

(1) It is necessary to have a standard of education. (2) We can set two sorts of standards there. (3) First, a minimum standard below which no one is allowed to fall, in the shape of so many years of elementary education in such and such subjects. (4) And secondly, and in a way even more important, a standard of equal opportunity for all, to ensure that no boy or girl is deprived of the chance of climbing to the top of the educational ladder through poverty or the accidents of birth. (5) There are also standards of economic security. (6) During the recent past, the sense of insecurity has been the single greatest cause, both of individual anxiety and frustration, and social instability and unrest. (7) A state must see to it that it gives to all its citizens minimum standards of security against ill health against unemployment against widowhood, against old age. (8) A man cannot be a good citizen nor do himself justice as an individual if he lives in a nightmare of frustration and anxiety about losing his job. (9) Issues of social security are, therefore, interlinked. (10) This is irrespective of whether they are in the field of basic education, basic health, employment or even protection against economic needs arising out of old age, disability etc. (11) The state expenditure on social security is bound to fall back upon the shoulders of the society at large. (12) A society that cannot take due care of such basic needs of each and every of its members is not fit to be called in the true sense of the term.